


Three's A Crowd (So Follow The Sound)

by naijagirl101



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Rare Pairings, Realistic Depictions of Illness, Slow Build, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8502913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naijagirl101/pseuds/naijagirl101
Summary: "He could ward places, perform protection spells, and outthink everyone but Deaton this side of the Andes, and he had a successful side hustle in charms. He had his own apartment up in Palo Alto during the school year and Skype calls w/Scott and Kira, and Thanksgiving with Lydia (and Jackson, the everlasting douche, God) at RPI to look forward to and -- his life was full. Amazing, even.So, really, he was still whole."Or the one where Stiles has kind of made peace with the fact that he was born with no soulmate. As fate would have it, it turns out he actually has two.





	1. retro

Stiles doesn’t care.

Okay - false, he totally cares but only when he's in the company of Scott and Kira, and even then it's more like a ‘Hey, quit being so obnoxiously cute!’ and less of a ‘Why the fuck am I so abnormal?’ - he doesn’t care _much_. Nothing's guaranteed, soulmates can be across the world for all anyone knows, marks only appear when soulmates are “in a place where they're ready to have a significant other”, you can (in theory) go your whole life without meeting them _yada yada yada_.

The point is Stiles, while a worrier, isn't capable of working up enough brain space to _actively_ and continually care. It gets tiring, alright? He knows the score. He's suspected what he is as early as high school: Scott and Kira, then Erica and Boyd - within a two-month span. Nothing had happened for Stiles junior year. Or senior year. Or his nineteenth birthday. Or twentieth. Or twenty-first.

Stiles doesn’t have a soulmate.

His soulmate might have died before Stiles got through high school. Or his soulmate was one of the 5% of the population that was supernatural and got destroyed by their own power before he’d hit the tail-end of puberty - a werewolf who’d gone feral or a Banshee who’d lost themselves before mastering their power. Or he's someone’s second soulmate - sometimes, people lose their soulmates and Fate gifts them another. Its possible that somewhere out there is someone who's going to lose somebody to gain Stiles. For obvious reasons, he really _really_ hopes that isn’t the case.

It's also just as likely that he has no soul mark because he has no living soulmate. He’d spent most of his senior year doing hours and hours of research - when the Nemeton had settled down and his lessons with Deaton had become regular. Hours of research have led him to the conclusion that he just doesn’t have one. And while that makes him a part of a small brotherhood (4.39% of the American population, actually) of rare human beings, it doesn’t make him any _less_.

He's just...different.

Soulmates work in different ways. It isn’t always romantic (there are a decent number of bestie soulmate at UC Berkeley) and it doesn’t always work out perfectly. The divorce rate has jumped from 3% to 6% in the last decade. There’s been a rise in prejudice in the last few years against those with magic - witches, warlocks, Druids, weres - and some of those stringent families are rejecting their soulmates. Not fun since you _can_ live without a soulmate bond unfulfilled but your quality of life kind of takes a dive. Anyway, Stiles keeps all of this in mind, takes comfort in the statistics.

His chances of walking into someone in the grocery store, locking eyes, and being swept up into “knowing” are null. He'll never be part of one of those tell-tale coincidence stories, the “I usually take the 5:30 train but for some reason I waited for the 6pm” or the “honestly, I dunno what made me go into the coffee shop that day” stories. With no Marks burned into his body, he's got irrefutable proof that he just doesn’t have one.

Still, he's fine.

He's still whole. It's taken him three entire years, an indefinable number of private pity parties, and a shit ton of hard liquor to truly convince himself of that. Look, if Heart Theory spoke of souls halved only to meet again, then it stands to reason that Stiles has all of his soul. He and the rest of the 4.39% have been born as close to perfectly complete as could be. _That’s_ why he doesn’t have a life partner in crime. He doesn’t _need_ one (and fuck all the other theories that say otherwise, thank you very much).

He has a small tribe of humans, werewolves, and a Banshee scattered across the country. He's got a pretty awesome Dad to take care of. After this summer, he has a year and half left to wrap up his Master’s in Anthropology. He can ward places, perform protection spells, has a thriving side-business, and gives kickass hugs. He’s twenty-two years old, renting his own apartment up in Palo Alto, he never misses his every-other daily Skype calls Scott and Kira, has Thanksgiving with Lydia (and Jackson, the everlasting douche, God) at RPI to look forward to and -

\- his life is full. Amazing, even.

So, really, he’s still whole.

And if Stiles finds himself wide awake in the dead of night with the weight of loneliness on his chest every now and then? That’s no-one else’s business but his.


	2. cataclasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s known few werewolves since then (lawyers and land-developers seemed to be uncommonly popular career choices for them) but he’s never fully conceptualized all the need for space they seemed to need. And then the car turns down a road and - 
> 
> Whoa.
> 
>  Christ, Erica hasn’t been kidding about the old money thing.

“Why am I dressed like this, again?” he sighs, tugging at the dark grey suit Erica had barged into his house with and pretty much forced him into. “Where’s Boyd? What’s happening? And where are we going?”

No answer, because Erica Reyes is _rude_ like that. It's incredible that at this age, he still can't get her to stop trying to run his life. And if this is another blind date set-up, he’s literally going to call a Lyft home because _no_. He has this surreal moment where he briefly considers singeing her into letting him go, but bodily harm against friends (even werewolf friends who’d heal in under five minutes) is probably going to land him on her shitlist. And that's not really a place that he'd like to be, especially at the start of a long summer home in Beacon Hills. He's got ages to antagonize her, no need to start early. Stiles has no more time to mourn the loss of his quiet Friday night before Erica all but tosses him into the backseat of the grey Nissan.

“Could you _pretend_ not to be able to manhandle me?” He sits up, curses because she'll kill him if the suit is wrinkled even though she's the one doing the wrinkling, and gazes mournfully at Boyd who has no decency or pity for the Stiles. Ugh. “Boyd, what.”

“It’s not a surprise blind date,” Boyd says, obviously trying not to smirk. Stiles would be more grateful for the attempt if it wasn’t so clear that the guy's doing his best not to laugh in his face. “Erica didn’t tell you and you got dressed anyway?”

He doesn't even dignify that with a response because when does Erica ever tell him things? And is Boyd gonna pretend that he doesn’t hop to on his soulmates’ say-so? Please. They both watch Erica swing across the hood of the car, werewolf reflexes on display for no reason other than the fact that she is a big fat  _show-off_ , before she buckles herself in.

“We’re not taking you to Heather’s if that's what you're worried about, Stiles!” Erica looks miffed now, like _she’s_ the one who's been asked to dress nicely for a surprise event they hadn't heard about.

Besides, he's got good reason to fear any Erica-centered request re: nice clothes. Heather’s a friend - a good friend, really, when she isn’t trying to toss other ‘non-marked’ people at Stiles but one day, he’s just going to have flat out tell her the matchmaking does nothing but irritate him. How Heather seems to know so many people who either don’t have soulmarks or haven’t yet met their soulmates, he has no idea. But actively dating anyone who’s basically just waiting until their real partner comes along? Not recommended. Nope.

“We’re going to a very nice dinner party thrown by our very nice pack” she says over her shoulder, “and I asked you to dress nicely because I want you to look like you care.”

Blind dates? Hell no. The Hales? He can do.

“Why couldn’t you just _say_ that?”

“I like to keep you on your toes.”

“Subterfuge? Unnecessary,” he scoffs. “It’s not like I haven’t met them before.”

“You’ve met like...three of them,” Erica snorts. “Our pack is way bigger than just Cora, Derek, and Laura. Scott and Kira met them while you were _gone_ so now it’s your turn. So, yes, you needed to be this dressed up so you can look the part of someone I call friend.”

He makes a face, opens and shuts his mouth - endurance is the better part of valor, whatever - and resigns himself to a night of socializing and dampening his scent in a group of individuals who can smell every change in emotion. Stiles loves his friends but, contrary to popular belief, a night by himself to stream Westworld on HBO and work on his paper is basically perfect. But that's the thing about being home. Summer is pretty much the only time he can come back to visit, and Erica has a way of monopolizing his time that regularly decimate all his plans.

When Boyd turns off the main road a few miles outside of town, Stiles perks up. He knows the Hales live in the middle of the Preserve but he’s never been on their property. When Erica and Boyd had been bitten a year and a half ago, Stiles couldn’t be there in person for their acclimation to wolfhood.

It had been kind of a shitty time, to be honest. The spring of junior year of college, Erica’s health started spiraling out of control. It started with a flu that wouldn’t quit after Spring Break. Finals week, she fainted in the middle of her last exam - Stiles still remembered the way Boyd had sounded on the call, asking him to come to the hospital. Everything went downhill from there. No one could understand what was triggering the seizures initially, and summer turned into a nightmare.

There’d been a question of compatibility - most of the human population could easily be tested to see if they could take the Bite, but Erica’s blood? Inconclusive.

Stiles _still_ hates that fucking word.

There had been some intense (read: emotional) months - Scott and Kira driving up from L.A. every other weekend, Lydia and Jackson Skyping in from RPI, that truly awful weekend where dependable stoic Boyd had gone on a solo bender before being found drunk, desperate, and crying two towns over by Scott and Derek. His Dad had taken Boyd most of the next day. No one had to tell Stiles that it was the camaraderie between one who’d lost the love of his life and one who was about to. After that, it was a blur of hospital visits, pack nights, puppy piles in Stiles’ apartment, and the kind of living grief that wore everyone down to the bones.

They’d come so close to losing her. Derek had gone to the Hale Elders, Erica had finally decided it was worth the risk, Boyd had asked to be bitten too, and an agonizing twenty-four hours later the Bite took. Stiles hadn't been able to be there for any of this - he'd missed so much school, he was so afraid that his finals were mostly a blur that year. Sometimes, he still thinks about the way they almost broke on the back of her disease-

“Stiles?”

Erica's scenting the air and Boyd’s dark questioning eyes in the mirror - and shakes himself, smiles at them.

“Nothing.”

Anyway.

Erica and Boyd are part of the Hale pack. Cora and Derek, obviously, are part of the Hale pack. He’s known few werewolves since then (lawyers and land-developers seemed to be uncommonly popular career choices for them) but he’s never fully conceptualized all their need for space. And then the car turns down a road and -

 _Whoa_.

Christ, Erica hasn’t been kidding about the old money thing.

Faerie lights strung up in the trees lining the long driveway, the storybook house lit up like a welcoming Thomas Kincaid painting...he whistles under his breath.

“Getting the bite beats sleeping your way into money, huh?”

Boyd shoots him an unimpressed look through the mirror and Erica snorts again, so Stiles is satisfied enough to just press his nose up against the window. Everyone knows that pack is family and family provides - werewolves in wealthy packs were by _no means_ lazy (heh, landscapers and lawyers make a shit ton of money) but Erica Reyes and Boyd Vernon will never ever come up short.

This place screams money. It also kind of screams comfort. He’s never been here and he’s already planning to charm the Hale Alphas into letting him come back to see it in the fall, when the foliage will make the entire place look amazing.

The wards on the place are firm and... _warm_. A ripple of magic trails a comforting hand down his spine as he crosses the strongest one, 40 feet from the front door. Super complex protection, which makes sense since the Hale Pack has been in Beacon Hills for at least four generations and every new generation means a new magic practitioner/Emissary and Alpha to enforce them. Stiles can make out at least five layers alone, the outermost focused on-

\- he wrinkles his brow -

\- _protection against fire._

Kinda unusual to have more that two fireproof layers, though maybe not so unusual in forested Northern California. Still, these seem to be a somewhat recent addition to the Hale land protection. And the way they’re interwoven? Nothing short of badass. He opens up his senses even more and “pokes” the ward, friendly-like so it won’t zap him.

The magic parts easily, like he’s had a hand in building the thing itself.

Definitely...odd.

But pretty fucking cool.

He’s never heard of pack magic reacting so positively to an unknown Spark but, before he has much time to puzzle through why the ward seems to _like_ him so much, Boyd's turning off the engine and getting out to open Erica’s door.

Well, no time like the present to make a good first impression.

He follows them through the grass, up the porch steps, and through glass doors that actually kind of remind him of the Cullen house in the Twilight movies or a scene straight out of a postcard. Boyd peels away almost immediately but Erica just takes Stiles’ arm to pull him deeper into the crowd.

Wordless music, check. Werewolves, check. Witches and warlocks (bright pink hair and nose-rings in the corner, dead giveaway), check. Stiles might have grown up in Beacon Hills but he doesn’t know half the room, excluding all the good looking dark-haired never-before-seen folks that are most definitely Hales. When they stop in front of a couple Renaissance painters would no doubt have fought to paint, he's gotta admit that he's pretty impressed. Is the entirety of the Hale gene pool like this? Are they all, as he'd accused Cora in middle school, part-Veela? 

“Alphas Talia and Andrew Hale," says Erica in the most respectful voice he's ever heard her use, "I would like you to meet Stiles.”

Both Talia and Andrew Hale incline their heads and he's a little bit awed at how regal they make it look.

“It's nice to meet you both," he says, going for casual and not star-struck. "I've heard a lot about you, so it's really nice to see you in person."

When they both smile, almost in unison, some unknown part of him relaxes.

“Likewise,” Alpha Talia says warmly. “We’ve heard so much about you from our kids and from Erica - it’s good to put a face to the Sheriff’s son now that you’re back for the summer.”

“Not Boyd, huh.”

Andrew Hale turns a chuckle into a cough, and Stiles can practically _feel_ Boyd glaring at him from somewhere in the room. Erica barely restrains her elbow in his side. He beams at the Alphas, leaned forward to impart his secret. “Not a talker, that one.”

Andrew gives up the ghost and laughs outright.

“Delighted to finally meet you too, Stiles,” he says. “We’ve been trying to get the Sheriff to come to one of these for years - glad we’ve got you, at least.”

“It’s always work with him!” Stiles shakes his head. “But to be honest, Erica didn’t tell me where we were heading so I doubt my father could have made it. But he’s good, better than ever - obviously, celebrating having the house to himself and no kid in sight.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much - invite him next time, will you?” Talia waves her hand, indicates the wide short hallway that looks like it leads into a kitchen. “Cora and Derek are somewhere around here - probably with the rest of their siblings. Please, help yourself and stay as long as you’d like.”

Another hug that feels even more comforting than the first, and the Hale Alphas are off to mingle with guests.

He and Erica, arm in arm, stroll towards the kitchen, Every few steps, Erica stops to introduce him to some member of the pack or the bigger magical community. Of the few regular non-magic or non-were humans here, he knows the librarian Mrs. Clarke, her partner, their two teenagers, and Sharon from the firefighters’ department. Everyone else is a complete stranger. That’s what happens when you move away from home for school, he supposes.

Still, everyone knows he's the Sheriff’s kid and asks after his dad as genuinely as possible. It’s the nicest evening he’s had in awhile.

“You hanging in there, Batman?”

“I’m fine,” he smiles fondly down at Erica. “You’re on shepherding duty tonight or something?”

“Would you rather I go get Derek?” she asks sweetly. “I”m sure he’d love-”

“No, no, no,” Stiles cuts her off hastily. As much as Stiles loved Derek, they ended up bickering half the time. “You’re perfect, I love you, I’m shutting up and letting you direct my steps.”

She gives him a look -

“I swear, you and Boyd are practically becoming each other nowadays.”

\- and _there_ , that spectacularly unimpressed look is his cue to hush. He mimes a zipping motion.

“As if you could keep quiet for more than a few minutes,” a familiar voice scoffs behind him. “Please.”

“I’ve been looking for your opinion all night, Cora!” He turns, already batting his eyes. “Besides, you say that like you don’t love me and I know for a fact that you _do_.”

She narrows her eyes.

“I don’t.”

“Lying,” Erica smirks.

“Rude,” Cora primly folds her hands behind her back. "It’s not polite to listen to heartbeats."

“I’m wounded,” Stiles interrupts. “After I practically matchmade you with Isaac?”

“He’s my soulmate,” she shoots back witheringly. “I would have found him eventually.”

Possibly but ‘eventually’ might have been a while.

She and Isaac hadn't ever run in the same social circles, hadn’t gone off their freshman year to the same college, and hadn't actually met before Stiles had dragged Isaac to the movies with them during winter break a year ago.

“Sure, Cora,” he rolls his eyes. “Where’s your brother?”

“You mean me?” Stiles very manfully resists the urge to jump three feet into the air and slap a hand over his heart. Derek is such an asshole - on most given days, he's better than Jackson (ugh) but only fractionally. What he doesn’t resist is the urge to shove Derek back a foot or two. “Hi, Stiles.”

“Dog. Bells.”

Derekdoes a piss-poor job of trying not to smirk.

“Still not funny, Stiles.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny, Derek, it’s supposed to save my _life_.” Stiles’ fingers are practically tingling with the urge to slam Derek with enough magic to toss him into the wall on their left, so he settles for another shove. “Is personal space a foreign concept? I just met your parents and I don’t understand how they managed to have the two of you.”

“It’s so reassuring to see you’re still-” Derek waves his hand, somehow conveying both disdain and affection, “-as _you_ as ever.”

Instead of telling Derek to fuck off while surrounded by people who can hear him clear across the compound, Stiles smiles sweetly.

“Cora, did you know that it was actually Derek who stole your Staetdler art pens your senior year?” When Derek’s face _actually_ pales, Stiles takes Erica’s arm and sails on to the kitchen to the beautiful sound of Cora’s sub-vocal growl.

“Brutal,” Erica comments with a smile that looks more proud than accusing. “I’ve always known you had it in you.”

He grins.

“I am that, Reyes, I certainly am that.”

///

Two days later, armed with a shopping list and a grocery cart (sent off with a resigned “I don’t need you to do my grocery shopping, Stiles, I’m the Dad here”), he's just about ready to tackle the morning. He’s been buzzing for the last day, a tingle under his skin that felt like excitement - for no discernible reason. He’s had to force himself to get through the Blackbaud exam last night and he’d felt like he’d only just closed his eyes to sleep before it was morning again.

It’s been _years_ since he felt like this. He’d be worried if he hadn't been so ridiculously productive. Two client orders wrapped up well ahead of time (he’s not sure why charming hairpieces is a thing grandparents pay for now but he’ll take it), and he’s cleaned (boy, had he cleaned) and he’d dusted and mopped and that had only taken him two hours. A brisk morning walk, two cups of tea, and one Skype call with Scott, he’d given up the ghost and driven over to his dad’s to bug him before hitting the grocery store.

What to eat for lunch? Hm, what if he just swung by the station w/a sandwich and coffee? Cora’s probably free to hang out - or maybe he should head to the library to-

-his cart hits something hard.

“Fuck!” He’s cursing quite before he realizes it, suddenly in the present and knowing he’s definitely just run someone’s toe over. His eyes go from his cart handle straight to the person’s (guy, probably, those are some swanky leather shoes) feet and he’s doing a weird dropping motion to - what? Clean the guys toes off? Shit, that was totally a skidmark on some really quality shoes, oh God. “Are you okay? I am so sorry, I’m completely out of it, are you okay?”

A dry sound - maybe a chuckle, honestly - that has Stiles finally looking up into-

_Woah._

-a lightly lined face that _feels_ familiar. Dark hair, killer clear pale blue eyes.

“Oh-”

Whatever Stiles is about to say (and he isn’t sure what it would have been) is cut off as every single hair on his body stands on end. It takes him a few precious seconds to understand that flames - yes, _actual_ flames - have flared between the fingers of the hand he’s holding out to his cart victim. 

Spark training kicks in.

He’s scrambling backwards from the guy, from the cart, from theflammable cereal box aisle as the points of heat grow more and more substantial. His mind spins in fifteen different directions before settling on the super frickin’ obvious - his magic is not in his conscious control.

He’s sprinting for the grocery’s doors before he eve realizes it.

He’s had training for almost eight years. The whole point of his exrtracurricular studies w/Deaton in high school had been to leash his power before he got to college and could harness it properly. Sparks rarely lose control after training because once they figure out how to focus their energy into a branch of magic, their magic tends to take on that branch’s nature. Stiles is defense - while a healthy part of his training has been in offense, Stiles’ is really a wards/charms/growth/even a little bit of healing kind of guy. It’s been years since he’s blown anything up by accident and he’s never spontaneously started emitting _fire_.

 _Think, Stiles,_ **_think_** _._

He’s out the door and into the parking lot, ignoring the shouting and gasping (and screaming, probably) before looking around frantically. Saturday morning, lots of cars, lots of _fuel_ and metal - no good.

All the while his power is _bubbling_ happily inside of him.

_Shit._

He needs to yank all this energy back _inside_ of himself but he has a feeling that he won’t be able to get very far with the way his magic is quite merrily growing stronger. Maybe a ward? He can feel the hum, like it wants to be used - he can build a shield a few feet around himself and then try and burn the energy off. Sparks are mostly immune from the effects of their own magic but fire is a whole different ball game. Maybe if he pours it all into the ground? The longer he holds unto this, the more it's going to build up and the worse the eventual _kaboom_ is going to be. He briefly considers trying to turn it to something other than fire but the thought is fleeting - he has no idea what the hell he’s dealing with here and he thinks grimly of how mischievous his magic feels right now.

Okay, so - he needs earth. There’s a massive boulder beyond the edge of the parking lot, edging into dirt instead of grass. He runs for it - it’ll have to do - and struggles out of his Vans so he can bury his toes in the dirt. He’ll meditate (for like, twenty seconds) and then build the ward, get rid of the flames - no biggie right?

He breathes in and shuts his eyes to center himself.

Power is just energy and his energy, at the moment, is a puppy playing off the leash.

He imagines his power as multiple and merry, tangled threads of blue light around his fingers. He sees himself unraveling the threads, pulling them apart until the threads around his imagined fingers are free to become a single condensed ball of light in his hands.  When his eyes open, he’s pleased to see it’s worked.

His fire is now a globe the size of a basketball, floating chest-high, a few feet above his upturned palms. He winces when he notices that the edges of his tee are already singed, and prays that he escapes this whole situation with nothing but very mild burns.

The minute he raises his hands to grasp it, the globe splits in two and and the halves settle in each palm.

...huh.

That’s not what he’d thought would happen.

“Someone has very helpfully called the local Druid and the police,” drawls someone behind him. If 90% of his concentration hadn’t been on figuring out _why_ his magic just split itself in two on its own, Stiles knows he would have jumped. Flailed, to be more accurate. As it is, his hands (and his fire) do little more than jerk and he keeps his concentration squarely on the globes, which-

-is it just him or are they swelling?

“Great,” Stiles says distractedly. He’s got a growing certainty in his gut telling me he’s got to secure the wards now before his magic gets any more willful. “That’s helpful. I’m going to need you to back-up about ten feet and instruct everyone else to do the same. I’ve gotta contain this, okay?”

Stiles doesn’t wait for an answer either way, just shuts his eyes again and pulls on years of experience to shape what he needs with his mind. He can build a shield in his sleep but he’s going considerably slower to account for how unpredictable his magic is. The whole playful puppy analogy is still _scarily_ accurate - clearly, this is why his skin has been humming for the last two days. His magic is so ridiculously delighted to build the shield that even though he’s _trying_ to go slow by speaking the spell aloud, everything’s happening almost before his mouth can form words.

When he opens his eyes again, there’s a mostly opaque-tinged-blue (odd, his shields were usually amber) wall now between himself and the world.

More importantly, though, the twin balls of flame in his hands are noticeably bigger. Fuck.

“That was...quick.”

This time, Stiles _does_ flail. He’s whirling around, his fire flowing to form a badass looking shield in response to his shock, to see a man _inside_ the shield with him.

Inside.

It’s the hit-and-run guy, with the dark hair and the eyes and the leather jacket.

There’s a full minute where Stiles knows his jaw is unhinged and his eyes are bulging and his brain is stuck on ‘what?!”, and the man - correction, the _idiot_ \- continues talking with an elegant wave of his hand.

“But a flare up at your age?”

The slight mocking tone snaps Stiles’ jaw shut.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

He flails a little, flabbergasted, then panics when his fiery shield disintegrates only to form two globes again. The sides of his shirt are smoking now, and the two flame points bounce - yes, bounce - and this is so fucking ridiculous and Stiles just can’t even. He’s gonna die in here because he can’t control his magic and he’s going to take this moron out with him.

“I told you to _back up._ As in back-up-ten-feet-and-get-out-of-danger back up?”

Tall, dark, and stupid just _shrugs._

Shrugs.

Oh my God. Stiles tries not to lose his shit but he’s having a hard time dealing with the fact that he’s inside his own barrier with someone who has no regard for their life. No built-in survival mechanism. Nothing telling them to run when people start catching on fire.

“Did you miss the part where I said I didn’t know why I was losing control? And that this isn’t normal for any Spark? And that you should _get out_ of the blast zone?”

“I’m a werewolf.”

“Of _course_ you are,” Stiles seethes. Such stupidity and sheer recklessness could only come from someone who thought they were practically invincible. His magic swells, happily ( _why_ is it so warm and cheerful, he’s never been this cheerful in his entire life) and he and the man watch his globes expand gently to the size of two pillows.

It’s a sobering reminder that he still has no idea why this is happening or what he’s capable of-

Someone bangs on the shield.

“Stiles?” Stiles looks up to see Deputy Maron, one of his dad’s favorites, his concerned face pressing up as close as he can get to the barrier. “We got reports that you were on fire - Deaton’s still on his way. You okay?”

Beyond the man, Stiles can see what looks like half the neighborhood huddled together under the play of flashing police lights. No doubt his Dad is on his way here. Stiles switches into reassuring professional mode.

“Hey Deputy M, looks like my Spark is malfunctioning.” He knocks on the barrier between them. “I’m going to try and burn off this energy while we wait for Deaton to arrive - in the meantime, the barrier will keep all of you safe. I’d suggest an additional safety perimeter of ten feet on all sides?”

“Good to know.” The Professional Stiles voice works every time - the deputy already looks less concerned. “But who’s in there with you?”

Stiles turns to glare while leather jacket smiles - and you know, Stiles hadn’t really noticed this before, but the guy is attractive. Sue him, okay, an idiot he most certainly was but hideous he surely was not.

“I'm Peter Hale.”

…

...it’s the second time in five minutes that Stiles feels his jaw hit the floor.

Of course he's a Hale - with the dark hair and the unusual eyes and the foolish _careless_ decision to step inside a ward with an unknown Spark who's got his hands full juggling fire. He’s going to accidentally murder a Hale. Awesome.

 _They’re never going to let me near their house again_ , he mourns internally. _I’ll never-_

“I’ll alert the Hales then.” Deputy Maron goes right back to looking concerned. “Hold tight until Deaton gets here, Stiles. We’ll handle the crowd.”

“Will do, Deputy.”

 _I’ve got a Hale inside my barrier,_ he muses as he watches the sirens and the lights and the yellow tape being unrolled on the other side of his shield. This is, quite possibly, the worst news of the morning. He takes an extra minute to breathe in deeply through his nose and try and problem-solve whether he might be able to undo the barrier and shove Peter Hale out of it or not.

His magic seems to react unhappily to that thought - an uneasy dimming in the mini-sun floating next to him. Guess not then. He’s gotta burn it off by dispersing it into the earth, and soon. Stiles slowly turns back around to pin the newly-revealed Peter Hale with a glare he hopes shows how serious the situation is. Peter Hale is standing at ease, hands in his pockets, patient and supremely unbothered.

“You’ve trapped yourself inside a barrier with a human Molotov cocktail, buddy.”

Peter shrugs.

“That means you stay _back_ while I try to melt a hole in the ground and release some of this pressure.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Peter even includes a swanky salute. Stiles wants to punch him in the face but his fire shivers. “If you can manage not to kill us both, that would be wonderful.”

Stiles’ fire wiggles even more enthusiastically and something _clicks_.

This whole...thing...hadn’t started until he’d run Peter Hale over with his cart. And the guy had spoken and his fire had burst to life. Is his magic _excited_ ? That doesn’t make any sense, at all! Sparks don’t just _react_ to people, they react to situations. Or family. Or danger. Stiles doesn’t believe in coincidence, especially when third degree burns are on the line.

“Who, exactly, are you?”

Now the werewolf looks amused.

“I told you - Peter Hale.”

His magic is so obnoxiously cheerful at just the sound of Peter’s voice that Stiles has to grit his teeth. A lick of flame whips out of his control and caresses the werewolf’s jacket before the guy can use his superhuman reflexes. There’s a moment of blank silence where Stiles is looking at a perfect scorch mark on the lapel.

For the first time, Peter Hale looks surprised.

“Are you sure you’re just a werewolf?” Stiles sounds dumb and fearful, and he knows it, but honestly he’s at a loss. Werewolves have their own magic, or so Core Theory teaches, so lycanthropes aren’t usually traditional magic users. Still, anything’s possible and he’s running out of time. “You’re not a magic user too?”

Peter shakes his head, opens his mouth -

“Nope, don’t say a word.” Nothing good can come out of Stiles hearing that voice. The fire shivers again and Stiles steels himself to do what's gotta be done. “Just shut up and back up while I try this.”

Without waiting for a response, Stiles calls the flame towards him and wills it to follow his lead. When it gets close enough, he flips his palms downward and slams his hands into the ground. The globe bursts against the earth, the barrier ripples, the ground cracks ominously -

\- and Stiles can feel the moment his magic decides it no longer wants to be contained.

Instinctively, he knows that he’s either going to ride this thing out or die trying. His fire surges in Peter’s direction, and Stiles can hear himself groan distantly with the effort of struggling to hold the storm within himself. There’s a sound, probably Peter, he's yelling before even sounds seems to recede. Power, power that can’t possibly come _just_ from him explodes into his bloodstream. He grits his teeth and continues to push everything out. The crack beneath his hands blows wide into a crater three feet all the way around. When his hands curl into claws at the earth, his back bows, every hair on his arms is standing up straight, there’s this low-level inhuman burn inching its way up his arms. Everything tingles, everything burns -

\- then there's a hand on his shoulder -

_everything goes white._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all! I'm still getting the hang of posting on A03 - I am so sorry I accidentally deleted your comments. Thanks for the love! I promise a new chapter every three weeks.
> 
> Story is lightly beta'd so mistakes are my own.


	3. disruption junction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s over the passing out thing.
> 
> Like, totally over it.

Waking up is _awful_. Stiles is exhausted, like he’s run four marathons and warded half the residences of the city of L.A. back-to-back. He hurts, badly. Since he can hear the beep of a monitor, he knows without a doubt that he’s landed in the hospital. Something - a neck brace, he realizes with something like shock - is holding him tightly in place. _Oh God_ , he thinks dazedly. He’s never woken up with a neck brace. For a minute, he struggles to force his eyes open before fear compromises him completely. He cracks one open just in time to see the door open, Ms. McCall coming in with his father close behind.

“Dad?” He’s shocked at how thin and hoarse his voice sounds but his Dad rushes to his side immediately. “Dad-”

Dad presses forward, just leans over the bed and drops his face into Stiles’ hair. And that’s when Stiles really starts to panic - he’s definitely hurt badly enough to warrant a Stilinski hug and his father is _very carefully_ not hugging him.

“What happened?” he coughs out. The monitor beats out the fast uneven staccato of his fear. “Am I - am I paralyzed?”

“No, Stiles.” He can hear Mrs. McCall somewhere over his father’s shoulders. “Breathe. You’re not paralyzed, nothing’s broken. Your body kept seizing when we tried to heal the third-degree burn on your shoulder - we had to sedate you and placed you in the neck brace as a precaution. You’ve got a fairly large wound on your head, a knot the size of a baseball above your left eye, and your palms are going to be uncomfortable for a few days as you recover from holding all that fire. You’re not paralyzed, honey, and you’re going to be okay. Just let me take your vitals.”

He breathes, wetly, into his dad’s shoulders.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Dad whispers gruffly into the hair at his temple. “You took a good four years off my life, kid.”

He’s still not sure that he’s not going to devolve into a panic attack and, probably sensing this, his Dad pulls away and squeezes his hands to ground him. It takes a few minutes before Stiles doesn’t feel so weightless with dread.

“Wha-” he winces, tries to drum up some saliva for his poor aching throat, “what happened?”

“It sounds like you lost control of your Spark because,” his Dad says carefully, “well, you’re...you’re mated.”

Stiles...wheezes.

“Wha-?”

“Deaton and the doctors don’t know what it means that your soulmate mark didn’t appear in the early years.” He hears his Dad’s voice from a distance. “And they think you might be part of a...”

 _Ah,_ Stiles thinks nonsensically, _there I go._

Noise recedes. Everything fades to white again.

-/-

The next time he surfaces, the room is dark and empty, and the brace is gone. His magic is flickering like it’s on its last leg. He tries to lift up and next thing he knows he’s screaming, nurses are flooding his room, and his shoulder _burns_ so -

-/-

 _Please, God,_ **_please_ ** _let me stay conscious this time._

He’s over the passing out thing.

Like, totally over it. He’s so fucking exhausted and he’s pretty sure he’ll sleep for a few days after this trial is over, but he’d like to stay awake long enough to understand what happened, thank you very much. And...God. He really needs to understand because last thing he’d heard before his brain had unplugged from his body was that he was Mated. When he feels reasonably sure that pain isn’t going to knock him back out (oh my God, his shoulder), he cracks open his eyes as far as they’ll go.

Weak daylight.

It can’t be more than eight o’clock in the morning - all around him are the sounds of a waking hospital.

Stiles keeps sucking in one breath at a time, trains his eyes on the ceiling, and pulls his thoughts together through his pain. He’s mated. He doesn’t know, really, what to do with that. He’s so been used to thinking that he was a party of one for the last few years. To think he’s had a soulmate all along is a little weird to wrap his head around. Well, obviously, something _had_ been different enough about the soulmate connection that it had fucked with his power and made him blow a crater in the parking lot of the local grocery store.

All of Beacon Hills, no doubt, saw the entire thing go down. He tries _really_ hard not to think about how fast news travels in this place and how he has an entire summer ahead of him to just -

\- his door opens slowly enough that that Stiles doesn’t flinch.

Peter Hale, dressed from head to toe in form-fitting black, looking a little worse-for-wear than Stiles remembers at the grocery store stands in the doorway. There are slight circles under his eyes, he’s rocking five o’clock shadow, and his right hand is curled in a way that looks a little painful. Despite all that, his eyes are clear and alert and the same distracting blue.

Stiles’ flickering magic _hums_ in recognition.

Well.

“Of course,” Stiles murmurs. Guess that answered the ‘who his soulmate is’ question. “My soulmate would totally be _just_ the kind of reckless idiot who’d get himself stuck in a barrier with me as I turn into the Human Torch.”

Because, _duh_.

His magic, Peter’s voice, the fire surging toward the guy, the hand on his shoulder right before he passed out. He’s mated to a werewolf, and not just any werewolf, but a Hale-

“And one of _my_ soulmates couldn’t be happy with a simple Mark appearance.” Peter closes the door behind himself, and then leans casually back against it like there isn’t a perfectly good chair next to the hospital bed. “Here’s hoping our third will be relatively normal.”

_What._

Stiles stares blankly.

The guy’s perfectly composed face remains exactly the same.

“Beg your pardon?” he repeats blankly.

“Oh, you hadn’t heard? You must have lost consciousness before your father got around to explaining this part.”

“Our...what now?”

“Third, sweetheart.” Peter manages to make the petname sound mocking _and_ concerned. Stiles finds himself going really quickly from confused to pissed off. “I’m told you were valedictorian in high school and summa cum laude in undergrad. Do try and keep up.”

His soulmate...is an _asshole_.

“Can you just...shut the fuck up for a minute and let me _think_ ?” he snaps. “I’ve had maybe _five_ minutes of consciousness since the parking lot, I need a few more.”

A triad. 

If his memory serves, there’ve been ninety-six soulmate triads born in the last eighty years in the United States. Ninety-six. Out of...over half a million pairs, he thinks. American poly-pairings are so rare that they account for less than 1% of matches here. In other countries and cultures? Not as rare. Probably the whole gender role/gender binary thing at play, but still, he had never looked closely enough at the statistics because the numbers were negligible. No wonder he’d thought he was part of the small percentage of humanity that had been born without soulmates. He’s getting the itch to do as much research as he can, ignoring the pain in his head and across his shoulders and...well, everywhere, really-

Point? Triad isn’t even been a possibility he’d entertained at the end of high school.

And, holy shit, he’s mated to a _werewolf_ which means all this pain he’s in? It’s gonna be gone faster than normal because he’s going to get the super healing part of the schtick pretty much immediately.  Hell _yes_.

When he finally opens his eyes again, his...uh...mate is leaning against the door, looking calm and possibly bored. If the guy is just about ready to go then Stiles might as well hurry it up with the figuring out how he went from blowtorch to invalid, so he could release him to do whatever it was Hale wolves did in their free time.

“So,” Stiles begins, “what happened?”

“No pretty introductions?” There’s a ghost of a sharp smile on the guy’s face that makes Stiles want to...throw things. “My, what manners.”

“Would you like me to make small talk about the weather too?” Stiles shoots back sweetly. He watches Peter’s smile become a _little_ more solid and can’t help but be smug - yeah, he’s not going to just let the guy stomp all over him - before batting his eyes. “I’m Stiles Stilinski, you’re Peter Hale. There, pleasantries out of the way. So what happened?”

“You’re a powerful Spark,” the werewolf begins, “and Deaton seems to think that your magic was... _primed_ , if you will, to react dramatically since you’re meeting your soulmates later in life. When you tried to dispel the energy earthward...I touched you.”

“My shoulder-”

“-and Marked you without meaning to. If I hadn’t touched you when you were trying to dispel the magic-”

“-I would have passed out _and_ flamed out.”

He’s putting it together. He’d been burning up with all this energy that had probably been coming from the _potential_ of the Mark, from being close to his soulmate and the bond being unable to fully manifest itself until Peter touched him. And since he’s in bed with first degree burns on his palms...yeah, so Stiles is hypothesizing and he’ll have to look it up later but he’s pretty sure that every triad Mark has been a bit more volatile than the run-of-the-mill two-person bond.

“And the shield?” he asks.

“Down as soon as you lost consciousness.” Peter makes an elegant motion with his hands. “The fire scorched the earth but dissipated on its own too. I doubt anything so exciting has happened at the grocery store in years - we’ll be the talk of the town for awhile.”

“Awesome,” he mutters under his breath. Passed out, a giant burn mark on his shoulder, a giant crater and scorched earth below him. They’re going to be a story for _years_. “And you?”

“And I?”

“Yes, you,” Stiles’ says, slightly exasperatedly. “Any effects? I can’t be the only one.”

“I’m not the one who’s suffering from impaired vision and range of motion.”

Something  about the dry almost careless way the werewolf says it makes something inside Stiles crumble.

He’s just woken up with a concussion in the aftermath of using more energy that he’s ever used in one sitting and a shoulder that quite _literally_ is on fire and he can’t believe he stumbled unto his soulmate in the grocery store without _knowing_ it and of all the luck in the world he’s gotten a soulmate who is apparently a grade A asshole and there’s a _second_ somewhere out there -

\- and he could really use a break.  

Just an hour. One good hour where no one is talking to him or presenting him with new information to be processed or... _anything._ Stiles is suddenly bone-weary. He just can’t do this right now.

“Why are you here, Hale?” Stiles asks. “You’re free to go at any time, you know.”

When Peter looks at him with yet another unreadable look on his face, Stiles is too tired to do much more than tiredly gaze back.

The stare folds into itself, becomes something else, until the room is receding, until his world is just this man he’s suddenly found out is...his. And he’s _still_ tired and he’s _still_ fed up but now Peter’s put-together look is cracking the smallest bit, and Stiles can see that the werewolf’s relaxed stance is unnaturally still. 

“I have a soulmate,” Peter says softly, still looking right at him.

Peter says it like it _means_ something, and Stiles doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s not sure anymore why they can’t seem to stop looking at each other, or why Peter is soundlessly crossing the hospital room to stand at Stiles’ side until Peter drags a gentle knuckle across Stiles’s face and Stiles’ nerve endings _sing_.

“I have a soulmate,” Peter Hale repeats, “and...my soulmate is in pain. Where else would I be?”

...oh.

Seems all the endorphin-happy shit he’d heard about the bond is most definitely _not_ a lie. Jesus, Stiles can barely hear the guy over his body’s intense reaction. Everything inside him says he’s safe now, that he can curl up and sleep and nothing else is gonna happen. Euphoria is way too much for his overtaxed brain - it quickly leaves him dizzy, panting, and yet...he can’t stop staring up into those unusual eyes.

_Jesus._

Peter Hale has beautiful eyes. Mesmerizing, even. Well, actually, it looks like he has beautiful _everything_ and knows it. Which is annoying, honestly, but those eyes are the worst. Stiles is going to end up doing something stupid if he doesn’t clear his throat and force his gaze away.

The werewolf deliberately withdraws his touch slowly, hands sliding into his jacket’s pockets. and Stiles can’t help but shiver. Holy _fuck_ , that is...so, this is definitely... _not_ going to be a platonic best friends bond. And if that’s how it feels every time your soulmate has their hands on their partner, he’s got a whole new appreciation for all the restraint that his friends show in their other half’s presence. If you bottled that up, you could sell it and make millions.

“Ask me your questions, Stiles.”

He’ll never admit to anyone that he takes at least a minute to gather his wits (and his breath)  around him again. Damnit.

“Who are you?” Peter gives him a look that clearly says his opinion of Stiles’ intelligence is plummeting by the second. “No, asshole, I meant where do you fit into the giant local pack!”

“I’m younger brother to Talia Hale.”

His jaw? The floor.

“You’re Cora and Derek’s _uncle_?!”

“Which makes you their 22-year-old uncle now too,” Peter smirks, “doesn’t it?”

Oh God.

“Wait, how old-”

“Thirty-nine.”

Which makes the man over a decade older than Stiles had originally guessed and puts him squarely in another generation. Also, almost two decades older than _him_. But...wait a minute. Stiles has looked at the most obscure and arcane and totally random pieces of lore and information available - and pack dynamic literature is extensive, if you know where to find it. Peter is younger brother to an Alpha which means-

“It’s just,” he stutters, licking his suddenly incredibly dry lips, “I mean - it’s just you and Talia? No one - uh, no other siblings?”

Stiles knows his heart is beating and by the way Peter’s gaze sharpens, he knows those wolfy senses are picking up each thump loud and clear. What he doesn’t know is if Peter understands that Stiles has never met a door he could leave unopened, figuratively, and that means Erica and Boyd’s bites had him delving into every facet of pack information he could find. 

Pack hierarchy is intricate, based on Alpha character and size and a whole host of things Stiles doesn’t really understand but is gonna have to figure the hell out soon. Self-governance, hierarchy, internalized rules, and roles kind of change from group to group but some positions for a pack as a big as the Hales are universal. And the least well-known piece is something Stiles had stumbled upon, a text referencing ‘Hands’ - as in, an Alpha’s helping hands.

So, yeah, he doesn’t know if Peter’s figuring out why Stiles’ heart rate has jumped a bit. He doesn’t know if Peter understands what Stiles is asking him.

He...doesn’t know if Peter understands what Stiles is asking him.

“Just us,” the werewolf says slowly. 

Well...shit.

Even if Andrew Hale has a myriad of siblings, each side of the family is represented by a single Hand for a total of two. Stiles remembers thinking how odd he'd found it, how antiquated. The Right Hand is the public face of good, the Righteous Judge of a pack. Left Hand, he recalls frantically, is loosely translated in most languages as the Dark One, the Silent Enforcer of Pack law. Again, Stiles does _not_ know his mate all that well but as he sits in his hospital bed maintaining eye contact that feels dangerous, he’d bet every penny to his name that Peter…

...yeah, no, Peter’s doesn’t strike him as the knight in shining armor kind of guy.

"Your brain never quite stops does it, even when you’re exhausted,” the werewolf says fondly - and Stiles wants to wrap that fondness around him and wear it like a _blanket_ \- Peter Hale doesn’t even know Stiles well enough to appreciate the way his mind never stops! This is ridiculous. “What manner of wolf do you think I am?”

“Are you going to make me ask?” All Peter does is stare expectantly and Stiles exhales. “Fine. Are you the Hale Left Hand?”

Peter smiles.

And that's really all the confirmation needed. Awesome, really, that Stiles is soulmate - one of, apparently - to the Bogeyman of the Hales. Quite literally the one position used to scare misbehaving cubs into line.

When he opens eyes he doesn’t really remember closing, Peter’s gaze glows gold scant inches away from his face. Stiles is surprised into sucking in an anchoring breath.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Peter hums.

“Wha-,” he licks his suddenly dry lips. Stiles has no idea what his scent is throwing out there right now - and he kind of doesn't want to. “What am I thinking?”

Peter looks at him, like _really_ looks at him, gaze sharp and searching for something. He has no idea what the werewolf finds on his face. All he knows is that the man is cupping Stiles' face and drawing him close, and that skin-on-skin contact apparently feels better with each passing moment, and he can't really bother to be embarrassed when his soulmate is dragging his thumbs underneath his eyes and down his cheek and -

“Stiles." All Stiles really does is look at him, trying to ignore the bond flooding his senses, while Peter holds his gaze before smiling a beautiful  _terrible_ smile. "I’m not cookie-cutter. And I’m certainly not _good_.”

-/-

“Dude-”

“I know.”

“Honestly, Stiles, _how_ is this-”

“I _know_.”

He knows. He doesn’t need a group Skype call to underscore how utterly ridiculous his life is. He’s sitting here in his own apartment three days out from The Big Reveal, a bandage over the burn mark in the shape of Peter’s _hand_ on his left shoulder (how utterly symbolic), a gash across his eye, and pretty much looking like he needs five meals in him stat. He doesn’t know _what_ Deaton and the doctors said to his father while he was unconscious, but his Dad hasn’t stopped calling or stopping by twice in the handful of days since his release. And that’s ignoring the fact that his friends are even worse - he’s so incredibly grateful that Boyd (and no one ever suspects that Boyd, eldest of 6, is in fact the world’s best cook) has been keeping his fridge stocked and that Erica has all but taken up residence in his home. Frankly, Stiles wants to retreat from _everything_ for a week or two and just figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do. But here he is, on a group Skype call so he never has to tell everyone about the _utter ridiculousness_ that is his Mark Emergence experience ever again.

“Stiles.”

This time when Scott says his name, Stiles hears the 'dude, are you okay?' in every letter. Scott’s his bro, knows him better than anyone else on this planet, with the possible exception of Dad. And Scott, a solemn look on that face, isn’t saying anything because he _has_ to know that Stiles is two seconds away from an attack of hysterical laughter.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs. “I know.”

Good ol’ Lydia, surprisingly sympathetic on the other screen, folds her hands and speaks into the silence.

“There’s 5% of the population with no soulmate,” she says gently, like he needs comfort. And maybe he does? “You had no reason to suspect. We never even considered triads and you...never leave a stone unturned.”

Jackson slides into the frame, coming back from wherever he’d gone for a run, looking sweaty and altogether gross on the pixelated screen - but Lydia shifts over to make room for him.

“What did I miss?”

Stiles loses it a little bit, a little bit of his anxiety escaping in a huff of wild laughter that he knows sounds unbalanced.

“Stiles is Marked.”

The look on the guy’s face is _priceless._ If Stiles weren’t feeling so...lost...he’d have laughed. But the thing is, he’s going to get this reaction from everyone. The entire town had thought him unmatched. He’s had the latter half of his high school years and pretty much all of college to endure the looks of pity or derision or _both_ and yeah, he has a thick skin but -

 _It’s possible_ , he thinks vaguely, _that I’m actually not handling this well at all._

“Should I congratulate you?” Jackson asks in the blunt way that only a natural born asshole can manage.

“On meeting my first Soulmate?” he quips. “Why, Jackson, I didn’t know you cared.”

“First?” Jackson looks confused. “Wha-”

“He’s got two,” Scott answers, “Deaton’s run the tests, thinks Stiles is part of a triad.”

Jackson blinks rapidly. It’s enough to push Stiles into a laugh, that is a lot less desperate than the first. While Danny and Lydia will always be Jackson’s favorite people, Stiles is a little glad that they get on well enough now for the jock to look both impressed and concerned on screen.

“Have you talked to Cora? Derek?” Lydia continues when no one else says a thing.

 _That_ had been a surprising non-situation, in the hospital. They’d been really obviously relieved that nothing is terminally wrong with him. He knows his friends love him but this whole ordeal has been pretty eye-opening as to how much they care. It’s possibly the most reassuring thing about being Marked. Anyway, Cora had been torn between utter disbelief and feeling like she should have somehow predicted the match (“honestly, when you think about, you both have the same sense of humor!”). Derek, hilariously, had been silently perturbed. Both had been a little bit disgusted (“I _never_ want to hear about your sex life, Stiles!!!”) but when Stiles had asked where Peter was, they’d looked confused.

“He hasn’t been here?” Derek’s face had creased with surprise. “At all?”

“I mean, he was here when I woke up on Wednesday morning?” Stiles had muttered at the time. “But, otherwise...uh...no? Should he have been?”

From the quick look Derek and Cora had shared, Stiles had a feeling the answer was a firm ‘yes’. Cora had reached forward to squeeze Stiles’ hand in her own and Derek smoothed a hand down his neck.

“Yeah, they’re both a little weirded out but we’ll be fine - lots of scenting happening, they’re not traumatized.” He waves his good hand dismissively. “We’re all good.”

Lydia purses her lips.

“And Peter?”

“What about him?” Lydia doesn’t even deign to address his weak evasion, and Scott and Jackson are no help. She’s expectant.

Peter Hale had left Stiles struggling to regain his breath two days ago, after the face cupping and the gazing and that arresting proclamation about not being good. Peter Hale, as he told Derek and Cora, has not been seen since. One would think that a soul mate, fresh out the oven as it were, would be moved to stick with their mate.

One would be wrong, apparently.

“I don’t know.”

“What?” Lydia asks. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

Stiles doesn’t know what to make of it. He has no idea what the fuck the protocol is at this stage. The Hales are such an important pack that he kind of doesn’t know if he’s expected to come to their property first - he could ask Derek and Cora but, to be honest, he’s already exhausted by this entire deal. He thinks about how complicated everything’s gotten, thinks about all the ceremony he’s going to have to go through, he thinks about the very clearly complicated character of one Peter Hale, thinks about what it means that his soulmate apparently can’t be bothered to check up on him, and then thinks about the fact that there’s a third human in the equation that he hasn’t met.

He’s just...yeah.

Yeah.

He’s not really handling this well.

“I mean that I don’t _know_ , Lydia.” He knows he’s revealed way too much of his feelings the minute he says it. The way Scott’s face softens into understanding, and Lydia’s mouth thins, and Jackson’s eyebrows arch are a dead give away. Stiles scrambles to divert the attention away. “Anyway, Deaton walked me through the Mate tests and magically poked and prodded - all signs point to a third.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

Stiles tries really hard not to be grateful at the out Jackson gives him.

“Basically, that we’re not complete yet. You know the routine bond tests you take every two years with, Lydia?” Whittemore nods, all the way on the other side of the country. “The more complicated versions of those check for how well you’re bonding with a person. And at the beginning, right after a Mark appears, there’s a baseline percentage computed. Ours is below the threshold so Deaton and all the other Bond specialists believe that the two of us aren’t complete.”

Stiles is going to look into every single aspect of the test known to man but, for now, that’s what he’d gotten from the team of people who’d come into his room the day before they discharged him to explain his state. Among them had been two leading Bond doctors who’d flown in specifically to be part of his recovery - Dr. Amrit Giridharan from St. Luke’s in Denver, and Dr. Ngozi Achebe of NYC General Hospital. He knows his case is a big deal because he’s rare, but until that meeting that day, he hadn’t really fully appreciated that he was put-all-your-other-cases-on-hold-and-fly-in-to-a-small-town rare.

Stiles now understands enough about the Bond Tests to have spent the morning before the Skype call buried neck-deep in Bond Theory himself. Lydia’s right - no one could have ever known. And with him being a Spark, there would have been no way to predict how violent their initial meeting would be. He’s smart enough to recognize that he has essentially been walking around, unfulfilled potential, and that there’s nothing to _be_ at fault about. He just can’t help but feel this weird mix of shame and anger about it.

“And they’re sure?” Scott asks dubiously.

“They are.”

“And you trust them?”

“I don’t really have a choice, Scott,” he sighs. “Besides, I don’t think they’d step out on a limb this...uh...rare...without being sure.”

“So,” Lydia spreads her hands, “what now?”

“I...go about my life?” The look Lydia gives him from the other side of the country is decidedly _not_ impressed, and he can’t help but fight back a sweep of irritation. “I’m working on my paper, I’m eating Boyd’s cooking, I’m letting Erica and my Dad smother me with love and attention. That’s the best I can do, right now.”

“Please don’t do anything ridiculous until I get in tomorrow,” Scott says with an easy smile. “Still coming to get me?”

“Duh, five o’clock. Lydia, Jackson?”

“We don’t need a pick up, Stilinski.”

“I wasn’t _offering,_ Whittemore,” he says sweetly. “Like I’d ever let you sit in my Jeep.”

A little more bickering and bantering then the call ends, leaving Stiles sitting stiffly at the head of his bed in sweats. He knows they're all worried (well, not Jackson, probably) but he’s kind of worried about himself too - everything’s changed and he knows he’s got to get with the program. Honestly, he knows that.

He’s just not really sure how.


	4. stuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he wanted to be technical (and long-winded to boot), he’d be explaining that there’s no such thing as overreacting to the wild appearance of a soul mate that no one had had any idea existed.

Stiles is a worrier.

He knows it, his father and friends know it, _everybody_ knows it. He figures that even if he hadn’t watched his Mom die young, he’d probably have always become the kind of person who needed to fight anxiety with research. After all, it’s helped him survive Mom’s loss, take care of his family and friends...and honestly, if there’s any time to worry, that time Is most definitely right now...regardless of how Dad is looking at him from the front door, over the top of what looks like five different dishes in tupperware.

“Son, don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Dad...the better question is why aren’t _you_ overreacting?”

If he wanted to be technical (and long-winded to boot), he’d be explaining that there’s no such thing as overreacting to the _wild appearance of a soul mate_ that no one had had any idea existed. Oh, wait, surprise! There are _two_ . But this could mean _anything_ \- for all anyone knew, his second soulmate was halfway around the world and functioning just fine. Honestly, he’s a trooper and a treasure, and he deserves crazy amounts of credit for holding back from just...like, marching up to Hale property and demanding to know what the hell his absentee soulmate is up to.

But the Hales had left him an arrangement at the hospital. He _wants_ to leave a good impression, not show up and cause a scene hence the research.

“It’s called being practical,” he says in self-defense. His father stops to gives him an unimpressed look and Stiles resists rolling his eyes. “Also it’s like you don’t even care. _Also_ , you don’t even know that I’m doing whatever it is you think I’m doing - you just got here.”

“You’re my son, of course I know what papers on the floor or _tacked_ into the wall-” (Stiles winces because apparently his Dad had never forgiven him for hitting thumbtacks right through the wall in high school, even though current research is happening in his _own_ subleased apartment with Scott) “-mean.”

“I just need to know! It’s better to know-”

“-than to not,” his dad finishes before heading into his kitchen.

So, sue him - he’s said it before and he’ll say it again - he’s nothing if not the son of a cop. A cop, he might add, who he’s reasonably sure that is already running quite a few different background checks on one Peter Hale. Dad, despite what he’s saying, is just as careful as he is.

He’ll call him on it just as soon as he’s got proof.

“Stiles.” Dad comes out of the kitchen to hand hima plate of lasagna that he takes meekly enough. “You know I think you’re right, kid - better safe than sorry - but you have enough to worry about without this.”

“So you think there’s something to worry about?”

Dad’s grimace is enough of answer.

“All I’m saying is that if you go looking for trouble in the wolf who’s supposed to be a pack’s Enforcer, you’re going to _find_ it.”

He doesn’t really have a choice though, and he doesn’t think Peter is the sharing type. If he’s going to find out anything about the guy, he’s going to have to smoke it out.

“So,” he says lightly, “you’re saying that two days is overkill?”

His dad makes another face, drops a kiss on his forehead like he’s still twelve (then again, he did take years off the man’s life last week and Stilinskis get handsy when they’re anxious), and waves on his way out of the apartment.

Forewarned is forearmed.

His dive into the interwebs has been fruitful so far - he’s found a ton of material on Things To Know If Marrying or Mating Into A Pack of Werewolves, not so much on What To Do If You Have Two Soulmates And The One You’ve Met Is Apparently Not Talking To You. So...there’s that. Still, bright side! He knows that fourth day out of the hospital or not, he should make his way over to Hale property to greet (meet? re-meet?) his future Alphas even without Hale at his side.

He picks up his phone to ask Derek where the Alphas are and his screen lights up with an inbound text before he can do a thing.

 **Mieczysław**.

He’s so shocked that he nearly drops his Android, then has to spend a few precarious seconds fumbling to prevent a smashed screen. No one - and he means _no one_ \- besides Scott and Dad know and can spell his legal first name. And from an unsaved number? He’s panicking, thinking of five different plots, all of which are some variation of _Taken_ and _Taken 2_ . No good can come of anyone knowing his government name, without _him_ knowing _them_. But-

**This is Peter.**

...

...Stiles is so flabbergasted that he’s torn between laughing and wanting to punch the guy in the face, first chance he gets. He does the former, promises himself that he’ll do the latter, and texts back a response.

**_What do you want?_ **

**Polite as always, aren’t you?**

**_Maybe this is better - what are you texting me about?_ **

He gives Hale (ugh, this a little too weird, he still sometimes calls _Derek_ that) a few moments. When there’s no immediate text back, he scrambles up and marches off to his bedroom to shower. Here’s an idea - he’s just going to ignore the guy (and his phone) for awhile. He’s got a good seven hours to pop over to the Hale house before driving down to Sacramento for Scott.

As he scrubs himself down carefully, Stiles has gotta give it up to Providence. Why is he being punished with Peter Hale his soulmate? Because the science talks about life-long compatibility etc. but does he _deserve_ an asshole? Yes, he’s a little sarcastic, probably a little ruthless when it comes to TAing but essentially Stiles Stilinski is a good person. The fact that Peter had had _one_ meeting with him and then taken off and had only now decided to text him did not bode well for their Whatever Ever After.

He can’t help checking his phone the second he gets out of the shower and...nothing.

Nada.

Not a text in sight.

_Awesome._

Stiles isn’t mad, really, he’s just yanking his clothes on and peering in the mirror to make sure his hair’s not too horrifying before he’s out the door.

He’s locking up and activating his ward right before he figures he should probably call Derek and ask for the Alphas contact information. Which is...truly embarrassing because in a normal world he’d get all this info from Peter.

Is he supposed to bring flowers? Wine?

He hadn’t found anything last night on There wasn’t anything formal or ceremonial for him to do but he should probably make a good impression on his future sister-in-law and Alpha. His in-laws are _the_ werewolf power couple of California, though. The combined power of Stiles’ bank account can’t offer them anything and traditionally, werewolves do the symbolic gift-giving to their mates...not vice versa _._

But maybe he should stop for wine? He stops for both at a _different_ grocery store in town, ducking in with sunglasses on just in case, but it doesn’t matter. He’s just picked up an assortment of light cheeses (snobby, yes, but he’d dated a wine snob his last year in undergrad and she’d taught him a thing or two about pairings) when he’s made.

“Stiles Stilinski?”

When he turns, the McCalls’ next-door neighbor Mr. De Soto is waving him down. _It begins_ , he thinks wryly to himself and slaps on a friendly smile.

“Back in town for the summer, Mr. De Soto,” he shakes the man’s hand. “How are you?”

“Hanging in there, son - it’s good to see you. How’s that Master’s coming along?”

“It’s coming - another year left before I can escape and set up shop on my own.”

“Moving back to Beacon Hills?”

Suddenly, the conversation lurches to a halt. Stiles has the sudden epiphany that he has no idea how to answer that question. Every single plan he’s made about life after school has pretty much gone out the window - he’d been deciding between Berkeley, Beacon Hills, and Seattle but that's now out of the question until he figures out Peter and their mysterious third. He opens his mouth to try and smooth over the awkward lull, but Mr. De Soto cuts in.

“You’ll figure it out, son,” he says kindly before pushing his cart ahead. “Tell your father I said hello, will you?”

“Thanks, Mr. D.”

Stiles turns slowly towards the alcoholic beverage aisle, picks up a Vinho Verde and a small basket to put everything into, then goes through self-checkout on autopilot. He’s kinda struggling to think about anything at all when he gets back in his car, so he doesn’t. He just drives.

It isn’t until he’s turning down the lane to the Hale’s property thirty minutes later that he realizes that he forgot to text Derek and ask whether anyone’s home.

He stops the car in the middle of the track and knocks his head against the steering wheel in frustration.

 _This is all wrong._ In an ideal world, he wouldn’t be a ball of anxiety in a small back country lane with his head against the wheel of his Jeep. In an ideal world, Peter Hale would be the one inviting him over to meet the family officially. He’d have back-up because his soulmate would be his _partner_ not the thing that went bump in the night. _What the fuck is my life?_

Is he going to keep having these damned revelations? _Yes,_ he thinks, _probably._ He has no idea what it means to be a soulmate and he has no idea what he’s going to do after graduation and he has no idea what other questions are going to spring this ball of ‘oh shit, oh _shit_ , my life has changed!’ on him in the next few days.

Stiles sits in his car with his head down, and starts breathing evenly because he can literally feel his body considering a rebellion. He hasn’t had a panic attack in months and he sure as fuck isn’t going to have one on Hale property. It’d be just his luck to have some well-meaning Hale relative find him unconscious and unwell in the driver’s seat.

That’s more than enough fodder for the local gossip mill, thank you very much.

When he feels like he’s going to be able to get through at least a half hour of social niceties, Stiles revs the engine up and starts moving again. He takes the time to center himself, considers muffling his scent and decides against it, and pulls the car off the path entirely when he immediately crosses the ward boundaries.

The wards are-

“Holy shit,” he breathes, several things making sense at once, “did you _recognize_ me?”

Wards, especially the kinds woven into the air and land of a place over and over, have a consciousness of their own. He gets out of the car because he feels like he has to walk the rest of the way now, and the Hale wards press into him happily. It’s like- kind of like a solid comforting hand rubbing the back of his head? There’s that sense again of welcome, this time firm and familiar, and another sense of-

_Huh._

\- his eyes close. he’s pushing outwards with everything he’s got and the ward dips like water to let his senses sink into it. The Hale property is vast, he realizes, bigger than he’d thought and encompassing all the protected woods a couple of miles around. His consciousness floats along, taking him where the ward flows, and he gets a good look at how all the perimeters are anchored to leigh lines that cut through the Preserve. The first Hales had either had an extraordinarily gifted Seer in the family or had luck on their side - either way, the center of their land essentially sits atop the biggest focal points of Beacon Hills telluric currents.

It meant the wards on the property were pretty much impenetrable. Anything that happened in the Preserve above a certain magical threshold would set off an alarm, of sorts - a disturbance that anyone with magical ability could feel if they were within a mile of the city limits. _None of that secret magic shit_ , he thinks with a laugh. Nothing could go down here without a pack of wolves showing up within the hour to take care of it.

Except there, right around the Northeast edge of the woods-

-hm.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says soothingly to the wards, “I’m on it.”

He’s sure his hands are weaving, weaving his magic to fill the thinning. He’s patient, taking a “look” at the magic around the empty space, matching the weft of his own making as closely as possible to the existing thing. When he’s done, he lets the ward take the patch from him and sweep it into place. There’s a moment of anxiety when he isn’t sure his work is going to latch on but there’s a sudden sense of warmth and…it’s done.

He opens his eyes, tired but _exhilarated_.

“Anything else I can help with?” There’s a warm press down his back that feels like _no_ and _thank you_ all in one. He can’t help smiling. “Okay.”

There’s a sense of fondness and a sudden breeze before the feeling dissipates.

Stiles stands there, pleased and kind of in love with the land and its magical guardian, before he remembers he's just done _magic_ and magic takes  _time_ and-

-shit, an entire hour and ten minutes have gone by and he needs to be on the road to Sac as of...fifteen minutes ago.

Well, he didn’t really want to visit the Hales yet yet anyway.

-/-

“Shake Shack?”

Why Scott throws him the puppy dog look, he doesn’t know. Duh, they’re going - it’s tradition now when he picks his best friend up from the airport. It’s just a matter of where and when. Stile lets him stew though, because he can, and only relents when Scott pulls him over for a giant hug and pathetically whines in his ear.

“What am I, The Punisher?” He points at the seatbelt (Scott always forgets to up), “of course, we’re going. Can you wait until we get to Beacon Hills or are you gonna starve before then?”

“Depends. Are you going to start talking to me about Peter Hale now or do you need a milkshake in you?”

Scott manages to look both serious and amused, and Stiles sighs before shifting to first gear so they can get out of there. There’s a solid forty minutes of banter on everything but the question first asked. His bud’s been kicking ass in vet school, and he’s been looking pretty photogenic while doing it (Stiles is _never_ going to get over the fact that KittensAndMcCall on IG has close to 4k followers thanks to Kira capitalizing on those big brown eyes).

“When are you going to quit school and become an IG model full-time, Scott?”

“When are you going to admit that you’re impressed by the fact that all I have to do is pose with puppies to gain a following?”

“All that fame getting to your head, huh?” They make the exit and Stiles reaches over to punch him in the shoulder. “A summer with us is going to cure that for you. Erica can’t _wait_.”

Seriously, Erica’s going to humble Scott _so bad_ and it’s going to be so amazing to watch her roast him every time someone brings up that IG account.

Another ten minutes and they’re pulling into the drive-through at the Shake Shack. Burgers, shakes, sloppy curly fries for Stiles and regular fries for Scott and then they’re zooming the six blocks in twilight to their apartment.

“Oh, thank God,” Scott moans immediately upon arrival, turning on as many lights as his grubby little hands can get on. “This place actually looks pretty good.”

Honestly, three summers of cohabitation and one would think Scott would just trust that Stiles knows what he’s doing when it comes to making homes look good. After all, his stint in retail and dressing windows didn’t go to waste (thank you, junior year!).

“Just put your shit down in your room, and come eat everything before it gets cold.”

They’re settled in front of the TV happily munching away, the quiet of evening settling in around the house, when Stiles finally decides to address the elephant in the room.

“There’s nothing to know.”

“Not buying that, Stiles.”

“Yeah?” Stiles hands Scott his cellphone without a word. He munches on his fries while Scott inputs the passcode. Best friend mojo means that Scott knows to go to his messages without asking, and Stiles is immediately rewarded by an outraged gasp. “Yeah.”

“Stiles.”

He pauses in the munching to catch a glimpse of Scott going from confused to extremely angry, and has a second of absolute gratefulness to the powers that be that his bro’s got his back.

“I know.”

There’s a minute of Scott staring at his phone like another text will magically appear. Sadly, that doesn’t happen.

“That’s all he has to say to you after, what, three days of radio silence?”

He doesn’t really have anything to say to _that_ either.

“You were in the hospital,” Scott says slowly, “and he’s gone ghost and this is it. Is your soulmate a giant asshole?”

Stiles stoically keeps munching but the curly fries aren’t tasting so good anymore.

“Stiles.”

He knows that voice - it’s the “let’s talk about feelings” voice - and he’s not sure he’s prepared to admit anything to himself, much less his best friend. But Scott’s going to wait him out (and they live together so he _can_ ) - Stiles is going to go with the path of least resistance.

“I ended up with a giant asshole,” he admits with a half smile, “and I’m a little bit stressed about it, dude. I don’t know what you want me to say because I don’t know what to say.”

There’s another solid few minutes of silence while Stiles finishes his milkshake.

“Did I tell you I was going to go to the Hale house before I came to get you?” he begins, aiming for nonchalant and probably missing that by half a mile. “That’s what the basket I brought in from the car was. I went to the Whole Foods down on Euclid and Mr. D was there. And at the end of the usual ‘hey how are you’, he asked me if I’m going to move back here after I wrap up my Master’s and I realized that Scott- I don’t fucking _know_ . Like no matter what my plans _were_ last week, they’re out the window now. I have no idea what’s gonna happen. And that’s...”

He stops. Scott fills in.

“...not fair?”

“Yeah,” he huffs and leans back into the couch, “Yeah. It’s not fair at all. Scott, I have a life! I had ideas and plans and all of it - all of it! - was built around this idea. Sure, I was a little sad sometimes about not having a soulmate but-”

-he’d been _free_ and now he’s _not_ and he’s going to have to make the best of it but, fuck, this hadn’t been how he imagined his last year of school-

“Who knew I’d be part of a triad? And who knew it would be a Hale? And who knew he’d be like _this_ ? And it’d feel this shitty? Because, trust me, if the tables were turned and Hale had ended up in the hospital recovering from a magical blast powerful enough to suck out his energy and keep him unconscious for three days? I would _fucking be there for him_.”

There.

He’s said it.

There’s a part of him (and, God, does he wish it was a smaller part) that is wondering if this is...what he deserves? Sometimes, you can look at two bonded people and think ‘this evens out that’ - you can see all the parts of one that compliment or make up for the parts in the other. So exactly what part of him is being complimented by the...dickishness...of Peter Hale? And he wishes he could stop there, that he could minimize it to just 'dickishness' but it’s really...man, he just doesn’t know a lot of people who didn’t hit it off with their soulmate immediately. And he keeps thinking about Derek and Cora sharing that _look_ , surprised and a little concerned at the fact that their uncle hasn’t seen Stiles again. He stares at the ceiling and tries not think about what he’ll have to do if this doesn’t work out because he’s not naturally a quitter; he tries not to follow that to it’s logical conclusion -

He doesn’t want a bond if it’s going to be so shitty from the onset.

The couch shifts as Scott scoots in closer (in solidarity, probably) and leans back to stare at the ceiling too.

“What are you going to do?”

He shrugs, feeling a little bit defeated already.

“What’s the _point_ of a soulmate if they choose to not be around?”

“Come on, bro, you love a plan. Plans make you feel _better_ , and before you decide that this isn’t it, you’re going to want to be able to say you tried.” Scott turns his head to look at him. “So. What are you going to do?”

They sit there for awhile; the question floating in the air without an answer.

After a while, Scott nudges him.

“Mom’s getting off work in fifteen-”

“-yeah, let's go so you can get your bike and meet her at the hospital.”

Keys, wards, and a fairly comfortable ride later he’s shooing his best friend out of the Jeep. “You staying here for dinner or what?”

“Yeah. Don’t forget - brunch at Delia’s tomorrow, all four of us. And think about what I said, Stiles.”

He waves in lieu of a response, backs down the McCall driveway, and just drives.

Down backroads and side streets until he realizes he's taken one of the roads up into the Preserve. There's a turn off here, Kiss Cliff, that's less of a cliff and more of a tame lookout that high schoolers still use as the make-out point from time to time. Luckily, it's empty - so he parks his jeep, grabs his hoodie, and hops out to lay back on the hood and stare up at the stars.

Scott's probably right.

There's a choice to make here, but Stile isn't really sure it _is_ choice. He's got no clue what rejecting arguably the third most important werewolf in the state of California would result in and, more importantly, no matter how little he cares for Peter Hale at the moment, somewhere out there is someone _else_ walking around with all unfulfilled potential of a soulmate bond.

 _Someone else,_  he thinks in the twilight, _someone else is out there_.

And he just doesn't have it in him to abandon them just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically a short fml Stiles PoV.
> 
> (I've been regrouping from a little personal tragedy so that's why two weeks turned into three months, so sorry. Thanks for patiently waiting!)


	5. escalation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about the way his vision seems to be swimming makes him think that he’s suffered sustained blood loss.
> 
> But he doesn’t know how that could be possible.

He remembers leaving the diner - loping into the alley outside to finally dial Stiles Stilinski because he could imagine the sort of _look_ that would put on his soulmate’s face - just as Tali’s name flashed on an incoming call. He can even remember his fingers sliding across the touch screen to answer her before something-

-an intense feeling of wrongness descending out of nowhere to grip him and _break_ his bones. He’d dropped the phone, his back contorted, the change painful and cellular in a way it had never been in his life - he could _feel_ his organs contorting to make ready for a smaller canine body, hair bursting over his face - and he’d instinctively grit his teeth to fight tooth and nail to keep whatever the fuck was happening from completion. Surprise, anger, desperation then-

-/-

-wrong.

He’s so disoriented that it takes him minutes to catalogue sensation - an onslaught of pain coming from his head (and his side?) - and realize that he is not, in fact, dreaming. There’s the grimey unevenness of the cement ground beneath his cheek, his fingers tipped into claws and digging deep into his own abdominals from where he collapsed. There’s a throbbing pain at the base of his neck that makes it impossible to keep his eyes open due to sensitivity to...just about every single sense.

 _Yes_ , Peter Hale thinks distantly, _something is very wrong._

He barely has time to think through the ‘why’ before his _head_ simply-

-/-

-losing time. _But what,_ he wonders with a sense of clinical detachment, _can keep a grown werewolf frozen mid-transition?_

-something...strong.

Nothing good-

-/-

“-vitals. Sir, sir, can you hear me?”

He comes back online, blinking slowly. The first thing he sees looming over him is the dark blue and white of what has to be an EMT uniform. He’s strapped down, he thinks, and moving - an ambulance. Someone must have found him, probably. He’s still half-wolfed out and there’s air on his chest, his stomach so they must have cut through his clothes to begin life-saving procedures - and a breathing mask over his face and a drip. Something about the way his vision seems to be swimming makes him think that he’s suffered sustained blood loss.

But he doesn’t know how that could be possible.

“Sir, look at me. Can you tell me what happened?”

He tries to speak, though he truly hasn’t the faintest clue what to say, but is startled to find that blood is pooling in the back of his throat.

There’s a spray of red within the breathing mask.

Peter has a moment to meet the shocked eyes of the paramedic before everything disappears.

-/-

He prefers the quiet, the stillness of a long hunt, the calm of a drive by himself. Peter has an exceptionally large family, an elder sister who loves to meddle, parents who like to dote, and countless countless aunts and uncles and cousins twice removed. He appreciates a good lull in conversation, knows intimately every _kind_ of quiet there is and this…

...this is not any kind of silence he has ever encountered before.

He is standing still, eyes closed, warmth of what feels like sun directly overhead on his upturned face. He has no idea how he got here but if anything, Peter isn’t explicitly concerned. When he opens his eyes, he’s momentarily blinded by the sky.

He just closes his eyes and lets everything his senses are telling him soak in. His sense of smell is muted but he can hear for miles and miles, wildlife in the form of insects buzzing about all he’s got. No cars, no animals, not even birdcall.

He opens his eyes slowly this time, drops his head, takes in the park (huh), and wonders distantly why the color of the grass beneath his bare feet is so vibrant. This isn’t any place he’s ever been. But it’s impossible to disregard the feeling that he should _know_ it. The park is like hundreds of parks across the country, he’s sure it shouldn’t feel as familiar as it does, yet…the sense of deja vu doesn’t diminish.

They used to go to a place up in Flagstaff which looked a bit like this place - his parents, Tali, him. Family trips with just the four of them were somewhat of a rare occurrence if only because extended family were almost always visiting Beacon Hills at any given time in the year. Some of his favorite memories were of those trips - as a cub fully shifted at the feet of his father while he grilled, as a kid skimming rocks with Tali on the lake, as a teen running with _pack_ on the Full Moon.

Or maybe it’s that something about the heavy summer air reminds him of being _young_. Suddenly Peter’s 22 again; a senior in college, more at home in his animal skin than his human one. Never mind that he’s got no Soul Mark - he’s never felt the Pull so he knows for sure and isn't too bothered by it. He's clever and calculating (which hecan't bring himself to consider a character flaw) but in his early twenties, his intelligence also makes him cruel. He’s restless but stuck at college because coming to Columbia had been a bit of mistake. With Talia in formal training to be Alpha for 2 years, he'll be Left Hand, and he feels...stifled.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be Left. Even as a kid, he’d felt that his place was by Talia’s side. He’s perfectly suited for it, he acknowledges ruefully, and everything in him feels that it’s not only right to do but right to _be_. Yet...he can’t help but want to run.

He's 39 once more and he understands. Back then, he hadn’t felt like putting a name to the feeling. Now, he certainly can.

He was privileged. And some part of him had known it and been _unsatisfied_ by it, by the notion that maybe his identity wasn’t substantive without the trappings of pack and money. Twenty-two year old Peter had needed the whole country to roam - not a sleepy NY town, not a mid-sized city in Northern California.

He had been dying to prove himself _to_ himself.

 _Perhaps,_ he muses wistfully as he shakes the memories off, _I_ **_should_ ** _know this park._

It comes to him, slowly, that he’s moving on autopilot. He can feel the grain of wood under the soles of his feet and hear that there’s a small body of water through the trees, probably on his left but he’s in no rush.

He ambles down the path.

He has time.

///

Chris hasn’t been truly religious in a very long time.

He grew up in the belly of a home steeped in zealous belief of silver, of duty and loyalty. He was brought up on the twin gods of morality and retribution, taught that some things (people) are simply wrong and must be put down to protect those who don’t know better. Homeschooled until high school, Chris hadn’t realized that a family where almost half of the partners weren’t soulmates wasn’t a societal norm. He’d thought about the people who lived in town, sure, but as distant people on the periphery of his existence. He hadn’t given any thought to the fact that it wasn’t _normal_ to go on supernatural hunting trips with his father as a minor. The first two weeks of high school in rural Portland had been a crash course in all the things his survivalist upbringing had purposefully omitted.

Like how difficult teenage socializing is or the hierarchy of popularity in high school.

Like how weird it must have looked for the Argents stayed in the middle of the woods with no neighbors for miles.

Or the fact that being sheltered wasn’t shelter.

The first time he’d changed in the boys locker room, he’d had no idea for several moments that other kids were staring, and when he’d cottoned on, he’d been confused (his scars...they’d been staring at his hunting scars).

He reckoned he could endure anything, and maybe even _like_ some of it once Kate hit 9th grade.

There was nothing to do but try and hold fast to the beliefs that had driven Gerard and Christina Argent to break off from the main family to disappear into the woods. Nothing to do but cling to the  unwavering faith in the rightness of his actions, that the _creatures_ he brought down on his father’s bounty hunting trips were no longer good. No - if he had to be _different_ , then at least he would be _loyal_.

So, yes, Chris, understands faith and devotion. But time’s dulled his belief in God and gods. Since Victoria and Kate had died-

-he just doesn’t have it in him to believe in much of anything.

Honestly, the closest he’s ever come to seeing God’s face was the first time he gazed into Allison’s. Nothing ever really prepares people to have children but everyone’s right about that - his life changed forever the day he held his daughter in his hands. He can still recall perfectly every hair on her head, her red face already settling from a yell to more of a little whine, a single fist shaking at the sky. He’s not particularly emotional but the nurse had handed _her_ to him and all of a sudden he was bawling his eyes out and cooing while Victoria tearfully laughed at him from the bed _._

As he bleeds out in this parking lot, Chris knows heaven isn’t in the cards. He has done things in service of the family that he can never atone for. He spent a lot of his life torn between being a good son and a good person. He no doubt has enemies so killed in broad daylight by petty theft? Of all the things Chris Argent had thought would take him to an early grave, a mugging hadn’t even made the bottom ten. He wants to laugh - really, he would if he could get past the blood bubbling up his throat.

 _I_ _hope Allison survives this_ , he thinks vaguely as the end comes for him _._

///

Stiles’ eyes open at half past one in the morning, his phone going off like nuts and a weight like a stone on his chest. He knows something is wrong before he’s even fully awake.

“Stiles?! it’s Jackson.”

He takes maybe half a second to be stunned by Jackson calling him by his first name _and_ sounding panicked before a piercing scream cuts through.

Oh God.

“Lydia?”

There’s a scrambling sound like the phone hitting the ground, the scream peters off into the most wretched moaning he’s ever heard in his life. Stiles is off his bed like a shot with his heart in his throat.

“Jackson? Jackson! _Jackson_?!!”

There’s a scuffling sound before Jackson's ragged voice fills the line.

“It’s a Telling - we just got in the door from the airport and she hit the ground, said your name, started screaming-”

“Jackson, how-”

“I don’t know, Stiles! All she said was your name. She hasn’t had one of these in-”

-years.

To get to graduate school, Lydia (like most Banshees) had voluntarily chosen to severely limit her powers. It was difficult to be a high-functioning Banshee in society, what with humanity’s propensity to die at any given time so most Banshees chose to limit their powers once they’d grown into them. Once done, limiters permanently focused powers only on those closest to the Banshee. Which meant someone they _knew_ -

-nope, nope, he shuts that thought right the fuck down. Now’s not the time to freeze.

“Okay, take a deep breath, Jackson.” The guy’s shaken enough to take his advice without complaint. Which is actually scary because he never does anything Stiles says willingly. Stiles is stumbling out of the bed and into sweats and a hoodie. “Get the emergency tranq from the bathroom, do exactly as you’ve practiced, then get her back in the car. I’ll get ahead and come get you two.”

Jackson gives the affirmative, Stiles hangs up and practically runs out the door while dialing Scott. Thankfully, Scott answers on the first ring.

“Lydia’s having a telling - can you call Deaton and get over to the Center? And call Dad? I’m going to go get them. Text me when you get there.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer because Scott will know what to do - he just fumbles the keys, locks the door and jumps into the Jeep. The entire fifteen minutes he spends careening out of the suburbs and through downtown Beacon Hills is right up there as top ten worst nights of his life so far. He gives himself a few minutes to beat his fear into submission because a) _not the fucking time_ and b) his power is going to amplify anything he’s feeling right now to anyone near by. Healing isn’t his specialty but he can do a bit more than first-aid - magic is pretty useful in keeping people in stable condition or directing the mood of a room. But he needs everyone to have it together, including himself - well, _especially himself_. By the time he turns off Main Street, he’s ruthlessly calm. He has enough of his wits together to park on the street before he’s running up the Whittemore drive and leaping up the stairs to come in through the door Jackson must have left open.

“Jackson!”

A shout brings him to the kitchen where Jackson looks ragged, tight lines around his mouth and Lydia slumped and clearly unconscious at a dining table chair. He doesn’t let himself notice the tear tracks on her slack face, or the way she’s curled in on herself, or how panicked her soulmate looks kneeling next to her. Stiles doesn’t have time to feel anything about that - he grips Jackson’s shoulders briefly, checks Lydia’s vitals, before grabbing the keys and the empty syringe on the table.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says firmly. “You got her?”

Jackson does. The two - _three_ \- of them make it down the stairs as quickly and as carefully as they can. He doesn’t think about the fact that the last time Jackson joked about letting Stiles drive his precious baby, he’d joked about life and death. The weight on his chest expands, gets 10 times heavier. He ignores it. The Center is five blocks away, max, but he breaks about fourteen different laws in the three minutes it takes to get there.

His Dad, Deaton, and Head Healer Marin are waiting outside when they pull up.

“She’s still out?” Marin says as Jackson and Stiles struggle to get Lydia out of the Porsche and unto the gurney. “Good. Mary’s still on her way and we need her here to See. What did you give her?”

It’s a scene straight out of a movie, really - aides are wheeling Lydia in through the front doors of the Center, Jackson tight-lipped and stressed, his Dad grim and speaking into his walkie-talkie, and Deaton’s normally bland face is actually creased with worry. He takes a deep breath ( _please God let this be something we can handle_ ) and hands Marin the syringe as the run-walk through the lobby and into an elevator.

“Haloperidol Lactate, right Jackson?”

“5 MG IM,” Jackson confirms tightly.

“What did she say before she collapsed?”

“We’d just got in from the airport - she whispered Stiles’ name, then the Telling took her.”

He can feel everyone look over at him and-yeah, okay, that’s pretty ominous but his Dad’s the Sheriff and no one mobilizes like he can. He’s not saying he’s the person everyone calls when they need a solution but he kind of is. And Lydia would know that Jackson would need someone to keep him together immediately. No point in panic until their resident Seer got here and to guide Lydia out of it.

He briefly wonders what it must have been like to be unable to figure out just who the fuck was going to die before Seers (foretellers) and Walkers (dream walkers) discovered new ways to practice. It’s not like they can accurately predict exactly who’s in danger of violent death 100% of the time. But he’s pretty impressed that the practice is so widely incorporated - every Clinic worth its salt employs no less than 3 Seers _and_ Walkers each - for only having been developed in the last two decades.

No one says a word while they transfer Lydia into a room. He’s not an aide - Stiles could spend a day presenting on why he thinks they generally end up in health professions due to the sort of feelings they’re able to influence -  but he really wishes he could throw some calming mojo out into the room. The whole thing about the Wailing Woman (and very rare Wailing Man) is that they wail for good reason. And a Wailing Woman with limits on her powers only foretells deaths of people close to her so. Procedure means that Clinic staff are no doubt in the process of contacting both hers and Jackson’s parents, friends, and extended family. Which reminds him-

-yep, the Facebook group chat is blowing up.  

> **Scott <1:39am>  
>  ** _Can everyone report in if they’re okay?_  
>  _Lydia’s having a Telling - Jackson and Stiles are taking her to the Clinic_  
>  _You’re probably gonna get a call soon_
> 
> **Kira <1:45am>  
>  ** _Home, just got off the phone w/Scott._
> 
> **Erica <1:45am>  
>  ** _What?_
> 
> **Erica <1:46am>  
>  ** _WTF_
> 
> **Kira <1:46am>  
>  ** _Is Boyd with you?_
> 
> **Erica <1:46am>  
>  ** _no, he’s out with Derek & Isaac  
>  _ _they’re not pickin up tho_
> 
> **Cora <1:47am>  
>  ** _Shit. They called the house._ _  
> _ _Mom just came in to wake me up._
> 
> **Scott <1:48am>  
>  ** _Cora keep trying Isaac - Erica you keep trying Boyd?_  
>  _Stiles and Jackson are already there then  
>  if everyone’s getting calls_
> 
> **Kira <1:48am>  
>  ** _Scott, are u gng to the Clinic now?_
> 
> **Cora <1:48am>  
>  ** _Can someone text Danny?_
> 
> **Erica <1:48am>  
>  ** _Already omw, Scott you don’t have the bike right?  
>  _ _should I pick you up?????_
> 
> **Scott <1:48am>  
>  ** _Yea come get me Erica, i’m at my mom’s_
> 
> **Isaac <1:51am>  
>  ** _holy shit_
> 
> **Isaac <1:51am>  
>  ** _ok yea we’re fine_  
>  _just got to Derek’s car, everyone’s phone is dead but mine_  
>  _Gonna add Danny, he’s not picking up_
> 
> **_Isaac Lahey just added Danny Maheleani to the group chat._ **

> **Isaac <1:56am>  
>  ** _Yeah okay the Clinic just called_  
>  _We’re on our way too_  
>  _babe can u be ready to go in 5m????  
>  Fuck now i’m worried_
> 
> **Isaac <1:56am>  
>  ** _Babe can you be outside_
> 
> **Scott <1:57am>  
>  ** _Erica just got me, on our way_ _  
> _ _Let you know when we get there_
> 
> **Danny <1:57am>  
>  ** _Isaac, just got your mssg_  
>  _Everyone take a deep breath, we don’t know anything yet._  
>  _Who’s there with them?_
> 
> **Cora <1:57am>  
>  ** _Yea, outside w/Mom_
> 
> **Kira <1:58am>  
>  ** _Jackson called Stiles_  
>  _Stiles drove them to the Clinic_  
>  _Scott called Mr. Stilinski_  
>  _All of them are there now if the Clinic’s already calling family_  
>  _Erica’s driving Scott_
> 
> **Scott <1:58am>  
>  ** _We’re almost here_
> 
> **Danny <1:59am>  
>  ** _I’ve been asked to delay my flight  
>  _ _Someone call me when you get to the Clinic please_

If Scott is almost here and the rest of them quickly behind, then there’s no point in jumping in. He knows as little as they do at this point. When a very serious looking black woman with tight curls in bright blue scrubs introduces herself as Mary, it’s _almost_ enough to make him sigh in relief. The aides move quick, urging everyone to their feet and out of the room in quick order. He has to grab Jackson’s arm - he can see the exact moment fear loses against good sense and feels so _bad_ for the guy - and Jackson lets him.

From then on, it’s a vague blur of waiting.

He texts the group that he’s at the hospital, his Dad is present, and Lydia’s being revived and the Seer has shown up. He coaxes Jackson into calling Danny - Danny has got to be alarmed, two flights away from Beacon Hills, and they could both comfort each other. Scott and Erica run unto the fourth floor hallway at a quarter past two, and Scott, Boyd, Derek and Cora stumble in a good ten minutes after that. He keeps rubbing at his chest, anxiety making a bid to come into play but he ignores it. It’s just waiting.

“What is taking so long?” Jackson asks at some point.

“Standard procedure - they’d prefer to revive her naturally so they’re going to wait the whole hour for her to come out of it.”

“And then?”

“If she doesn’t, they’ll induce consciousness. Then the Seer will walk Lydia through the Telling.” He’s read enough articles to guess at what that could look like but details aren’t going to help Jackson calm down. Nothing will, really, until this is over. “Max, it’s another forty minutes. These usually don’t take longer than an hour.”

He’s relieved when Jackson settles back into his seat without another word, though the grip the guy’s got on the water Erica handed him means he’s probably a hairsbreadth away from losing his shit. Really, _Stiles_ should be the same but he’s compartmentalized any fear away while they wait. They’ll deal with whatever this is when it comes.

At least, that’s the plan up until Seer Mary walks into the hallway with a look on her face so professionally blank that everyone immediately snaps awake.

He feels exactly as he did over an hour ago, waking up to his damned cell going off and knowing without a doubt that something awful was coming his way. There’s this sense of deja vu now, and before she even opens his mouth Stiles is slowly rising to his feet. He knows exactly what’s going to happen-

“Which one of you is Stiles Stilinski?” Every eye in the hallway turns his way but he’s pretty busy with the weight on his chest that’s just quadrupled. “Stiles?”

He feels like everything is moving in slow motion.

“That’s me. What did you See?”

Her eyes slide from his to the rest of his family and friends in the hallway. He’s not really sure what she sees but he _does_ know it’s generally standard procedure to ask the focus of a Telling to a private room to inform them of whatever the impending danger is. Her hesitation takes him straight from insulated shock to very _very_ anxious.

“What,” he clears his throat, “what did you See?”

It’s a car crash in slow motion. He _knows_ without a shadow of a doubt that she’s going to tear the rug out from under him, yet he can’t look away from her.

“Your Soulmates.” _Plural_ , he thinks dazedly when she hesitates again. _Not just one but both._ “Your Soulmates are dying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the well-wishes - everything is gng much better. This chapter isn't beta'd so excuse my mistakes (I was in a hurry to post).


	6. against time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who knew he could still be surprised? After all, he’s just heard that the other two thirds of his soul are apparently bleeding out somewhere in Washington state. One would think he’d be beyond anything but detached acceptance-
> 
> -but one would be wrong.

This hadn’t been how he’d planned to formally meet the Hales - in the lobby of the clinic full of medical officials and a slew of cops at his elbow - but this is where he is.

 _Life,_ he muses in what he’s not afraid to admit is a bit of a daze, _comes at you fast._

Immediate family - Derek, Cora, their parents, and maternal grandparents, him and his Dad  are hustled into a room he’s never seen before despite practically reaching puberty in this Clinic under Deaton’s tutelage. The Seer and Healer White trot in soon after, then there are questions flying across the room that he’s only peripherally listening to.

“He’d felt the pull.” He perks up at that, because the way Talia Hale says it makes him imagine a capital ‘P’, in elegant curling cursive. In fact, he knows he’s right when she angles herself in her chair to look at him where he’s standing off to the side. Her eyes are clear - the same olive green-hazel eyes she’d gifted Derek with. When she doesn’t look away, he gives in to the question that’s going to bug him until she answers it.

“A pull? To what?” 

“To your third.”

His third...

“...soulmate?”

Who knew he could still be surprised? After all, he’s just heard that the other two thirds of his soul are apparently bleeding out somewhere in Washington state. One would think he’d be beyond anything but detached acceptance but one would be wrong. He blinks once (or twice), rubs his chest, and keeps going.

“Is this common?”

“No. Not usually. While we’ve never had an instance of a triad in our pack, we have two living members who’ve felt the Pull. My grandmother was one.”

“When?”

“The morning he went to the Clinic to see you.” A few different things cross her face very _very_ quickly (and, man, he’s gonna pry into that when everything doesn’t actually feel like a decision bordering on literal life or death). “He let us know before he left that he was driving north, but didn’t - couldn’t - get more specific than that.”

“Do you know if he was feeling it before...us?”

“He’s...Peter keeps things pretty close to the chest, so I don’t honestly know.”

Talia goes on to explain that this pull, this internal compass that says ‘X marks the spot - follow to find soulmate’, usually comes on suddenly. It had for Great Grandmother Hale, anyway, and they didn’t have enough information to really extrapolate one way or another. Talia and Andrew hadn’t heard from Peter all of today, which...doesn’t bode well, really, and makes Stiles’ text the last known communication anyone in Beacon Hills had received. Which means that either the other part of their triad really _is_ in Seattle, or Peter had been sidetracked in the city on his way to wherever the pull was leading him.

All eyes turn to the Seer.

“What can you tell us about the third soulmate Lydia saw?”

“White male, grey eyes, salt-and-pepper hair.” The woman runs a nervous hand through over her afro, makes an aborted stopping motion. “He was attacked in what had to be a parking lot - there were the usual white stripes to indicate parking spaces and the edge of what looked like a grocery bag - and he was hit from behind so he didn’t see his attacker. Her vision fragmented at this point but based on my experience with how pain translates in Tellings? I’d say you’re looking for someone with head trauma - possibly a concussion.”

The night kind of devolves from there.

His Dad marshalls BPD to start making calls to every precinct in Seattle and Tacoma for mugging reports. He sends the department’s sketch artist Tom McBrannagan into Lydia’s room with the Seer to get something to work with to hunt down Stiles’ mystery third. Clinic staff get busy contacting all Seattle-area medical facilities and Havens that might hold either (or both, if luck was on their side) Peter Hale or a white male with head trauma. The Hale alphas split up to alert the rest of their pack and arrange a chartered flight to Seattle (he’s gonna be so impressed by the private jet thing later, honestly). His friends crowd in close and warm for a solid minute - even _Jackson_ , who only reluctantly detaches himself from the huddle to answer Danny’s call, and he’s distantly grateful for them.

The Clinic is nothing if not thorough - he’s practically dragged from everyone into a room so staff can take his vitals and compare results to his last check-up almost six months ago. Stiles is opening his mouth, rolling up his sleeves, and performing increasingly complex levels of charms for a two Healers - and all the while, he’s busy compartmentalizing and qualifying and _streamlining_ every possible theory that could explain the reality of two parts of a triad dying while the third inexplicably remains mobile. He’s not surprised when he’s told fifteen minutes later to that his heart rate’s up and magically he’s performing well below baseline. Healer Morales leaves for a second, and comes back with Deaton. Of course - probably because she thinks Stiles won’t be able to hold anything back from his once-teacher.

She’s not wrong. All Deaton does is _look_ at Stiles and he’s opening his mouth.

“I felt nothing all day. Right up until Jackson called me to help with Lydia, an ache.”

“Where?”

He touches his heart. Could be the stress of the night, could be a soulmate’s intuition, could be a physical reaction to knowing that the other two men are dying. But Stiles isn’t in an idiot and he can’t discount the fact that he’d struggled to perform green level 5 magic - speeding along plant growth which any sophomore in college could do without batting an eye - in this very room half an hour ago. Something’s up and that something’s probably not a coincidence.

“Do you still feel it?”

“Yeah.”

Deaton remains mostly impassive. A normal - read: non-former student - probably wouldn’t notice the _slight_ tightening around Deaton’s mouth but he does. And the fact that he can see through his normally clad-iron "I Know All, Don't Worry" mentor is so scary that Stiles feels a real bolt of fear.

But, see, he’s got no time for fear - nope, he’s pushing ahead to beg Deaton for every text he can spare. He’ll wade through every obscure text the Clinic has on life extension, werewolf healing, Spark magic, and soulmate bonds. People in some other universe probably imagine magic as a random act of...will, maybe. Or it’s not real, or it doesn’t exist, or whatever. But here in this world? He’s a Spark and that means his magic behaves by a set of rules (there’s math, _so much_ math involved), and there’s gotta be something that explains how one soulmate dying can drag another into death too. There’s something out there that will help him make sense of this - maybe not the _why_ of it but the _how_.

When Deaton finally heads off to the labs to expedite his bloodwork tests, Stiles returns to the waiting area just in time to see the Hale Alphas half-heartedly try to get everyone to go home to wait. It’s pretty pointless - Derek and Cora are scared stubborn, and Erica, Boyd, and Isaac back them up. Andrew soon gives up but hauls Derek and Cora in for a hug, where he whispers something that seems to shove the fight right out of his kids.

Stiles can’t imagine what it must feel like to fear for someone you’ve known all your life. What he feels is nothing, really, compared to Talia and Andrew’s worry. He doesn’t know Peter, doesn’t know the other guy. But the Hales? An uncle, a brother, a cousin, a son. All he’s on the verge of losing is _possibility_.

He sucks in a deep breath and looks away.

Luckily, a Healer comes by at that very moment with just what he asked for - books _._ A transcript of the Telling, four large tomes (one looking carefully preserved which must mean it came from Deaton’s own personal library) and a notepad, to be precise. He’s practically bursting with a thousand different questions - he grabs the books, shuffles to the corner, and sits on the cold clinic floor so he can crack open the book on Banshee present- and fore-sight, stat.

Banshee blood is one of a few unusual manifestations of power. Where born-weres either do or don’t inherit the ability to shapeshift and magic practitioners' have dominant myriad genes representing the types of magic they are capable of commanding, Banshee ability isn’t always genetic. The Martins, as far as he can tell, haven’t had a Banshee in their entire family history, and they’d had no fucking idea what to do with Lydia when she’d manifested early (and traumatically but _Banshee_ a.k.a. Predicting death - kinda goes without saying) at the age of fourteen. As far as Stiles can tell, Lydia’s powers are scary accurate, comparatively speaking. Half of all American and European Banshees get an imprecise feeling of ‘uh oh!’ associated with a specific person. A quarter get ‘uh oh!’, the person, and a location. Which is all very useful for the Seers who have the unfortunate job of diving into their minds to “see” the vision. Not such a positive experience for the Wailing person in question.

Lydia? In all of her fifteen Tellings, she’s gotten the sense of danger, the person, the place, and a solid look at the lead-up to violence and sometimes its aftermath. Only about fifty other Wailing Women across the United States have that level of precision, and a twentieth (yes, really, 0.05) of the _global_ Banshee population could do that.

Limiters mean Banshees don’t foretell every single violent death in a twenty-mile radius. It’s a procedure that they’re all eligible for once puberty stops fucking with their magic and their systems, and it’s practically a godsend allowing them to lead relatively normal lives. Limiters act like a magnifying glass, sort of - focusing their power into foretelling just for those a Banshee considers. Or it _should._ Stiles is family, yes, but his soulmates are not. Not that limiters are always foolproof or perfect and not that he isn’t so damned grateful that her powers had at least given them enough time to start the hunt but his brain can’t help coming back to the impossibility of Lydia’s powers focusing on Peter Hale and their mystery third.

With or without limiters in place, Lydia should _never_ have been able to foresee his soulmates.

Tom emerges fifteen minutes later with the Seer and a sketch that Stiles doesn’t bother glancing at. They all pile into Lydia’s room a minute later. There are hugs and some half-hearted joking but all in all...it’s just somber. He’s not surprised when she finally makes eye contact with him and starts to talk.

“Stiles-”

“It’s not your fault, Lyds.” Banshees always suffer a form of survivor’s guilt, and he’s got to head her off before she starts. “It never is. All you do is see things that are already happening.”

“It’s not,” Cora joins in, moving to sit on the foot of the hospital bed. “It’s really _really_ not. You can’t help seeing the past or present or future. And what you see isn’t something you cause.”

Jackson slips back into the room.

“Danny’s rebooked his flight to Sac - he’ll be here by 5:45am. Can one of you-”

“Yeah, I’ll get him,” Boyd answers. “Where’s Scott? Does anyone know when does Kira get in?”

The conversation about pickups moves to the door and fades to a murmur. Derek drops down next to Cora, nudges what’s probably the redhead’s foot under the blanket.

“My uncle is nothing if not a survivor,” he says with a muted smile, “and we’ll find him. Don’t blame yourself.”

“Intellectually,” she says wetly, “I _know_ that but-”

 “Yeah.”

He has no idea what she goes through every-time. All he has is reports, and statistics on the high rate of clinical depression in Banshees, and her own stuttered confessions when she’s feeling less guarded. She won’t believe them but that’s okay, for now - he just hugs her quietly before Isaac waves from across the room to get his attention, then motions him to the door.

His dad looks weary for a second (Stiles can feel the ghost of his mom in the silence) and Stiles doesn’t know what to do about that. He’s not ready to process the enormity of what he might lose if they don’t figure out what’s happening.

“Plane’s ready, Stiles." His Dad scrubs a hand over his face. "We've to head out now to make it to the hangar.”

Shit, he needs-

“Stiles!”

He turns around.

“Scotty?” Who he hasn’t seen since the sketch artist went in w/Lydia and the Seer so where-

“Clothes, laptop, charger,” Scott says shoving a duffel into Stiles’ hands when he catches up to them. “And the texts Deaton brought you _and_ some of your grad-level tomes from your room.”

"Scotty-"

“I’ll let everyone know you’ve left,” Scott hugs him. “Text us when you can.”

When he lets go, his Dad claps Scott on the shoulder, takes Stiles by _his_ , and Officer Mulay leads the way out of the clinic. The ride in the back of the cruiser is the longest forty-five minutes of his life - he keeps coming up with more and more theories and discarding them just as quickly. All he knows is this - no way Hale’s dying isn’t related to the other guy’s. But then what, exactly, is the probability of both of his soulmates ending up fatal situations on the same day that are unrelated? Even smaller.

There are too many fucking variables.

The Telling had been clear on the dying part, less clear on the cause. Stiles could have gone his his entire life without the imagery the Seer had described - of Peter Hale apparently unconscious and breathing through tubes, their mystery guy prone in some parking lot somewhere. At least there’s one silver lining - Peter is definitely hospitalized. With any luck, they’ll have a call from the Hale House relaying a notification from a hospital finally doing their jobs and calling next-of-kin.

What are the odds that both his soulmates are dying because of the same thing?

_If they’re dying, why aren’t I?_

“Come on, son.” Stiles startles, fumbling his duffle to get out of the cruiser _._ “We’re here.”

Talia and Andrew are already waiting, along with a pilot who’s most likely pack. There’s some mild confusion before they board and the single flight attendant runs through departure procedure. Everything’s pretty tense and very quiet, and he can hardly stand the wait until they’re wheels up so he can go back to research.

“Found anything?”

Andrew’s giving him a wan smile from across the aisle, so he manages a hard grin and shakes his head.

“More questions. I’ve exhausted Lydia and the Telling - it was only ever a theory, anyway - that somehow _why_ she could see them was important. It’s not, exactly. I just- I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole and I need to switch tracks.”

“To?”

“Bonding.” There’s gotta be something he’s missing. Yes, okay, it’s wild that Lydia could even see his soulmates so there has to be something about the three of them that he can find, use to...find the two of them. “There has to be something about the three of us - something that can explain why I’m standing and they aren’t. And maybe something that will help me find our third.”

“My grandfather was a werewolf mated to a Seer. He was a day laborer - construction in Wyoming, actually - and followed the Pull down to Oregon. Took him a week to get to Nana but you know what spawned it?”

A glimmer of intuition hits him.

“She was hurt?”

“Car accident. She walked with a cane for the rest of her life. Grandfather dropped like a stone at his job site and stayed down for almost forty minutes. Nana’s doctors couldn’t understand why she was healing a little faster than usual.”

“But Peter felt the Pull before our soulmate got hurt.”

Andrew nods.

“Which means if he’s still in Seattle, it’s probably where you’re third is. And perhaps-”

“-his werewolf healing is the only thing keeping them both alive.”

Well.

That’s more of a lead than anything else he’s considered.

When his dad just squeezes his shoulder, Stiles returns his eyes to his laptop. They’ve got a location. And the print the sketch artist made from the Seer’s impression (which Stiles had refused to look at yet because he couldn’t compartmentalize away his second soulmate’s face if he saw it). No name but they know he’s suffering from a blow to the back of the head and that it happened during the day. Which is fine, Stiles doesn’t have a minor in Research and Development for nothing.

What most people don’t realize is that the future isn’t fixed. Very little is ever set in stone, that much Stiles believes - and he’s going to change this fate if it’s the last damned thing he does.

-/-

They hit the ground running in Seattle.

His Dad, the Hale Alphas, him - their phones seem to be flooded with missed calls and texts once they take them off airplane mode. Seattle and Tacoma PD have agreed to work together to locate Peter Hale and their third soulmate, with only a Seer sketch of Lydia’s foretelling to help them identify the latter. A stroke of luck means that Virginia Mason Center called the Hale House sometime in the last thirty minutes to let the family know Peter’s in critical condition. The weight on his chest gets heavier but he has no choice - there’s someone else out there who has to be his first priority.

When Talia draws him into an unexpected hug, he only freezes for a second. A bunch of nonsensical things go through his head (“I’m so sorry” and “I don’t know what to say”) but he hugs her back and lets Andrew do the same.

“We’ll be with Peter,” Andrew says, ducking into a cab with Talia, “we’ll call as soon as we get there. You and your father - you’ll find him.”

He and his father show up at the East Precinct on 12th Ave at 6:15am and pretty much take up residence there. Dad won’t step on any toes, insofar as leading the search, but the guys give Stiles a tight corner to plug in his laptop and spread out his books.

He’s got 15 different tabs open on triads across the world and has read through the first two cases - one in Cúcuta, Colombia of a trio of whose youngest Mate (a witch) had gone on a solo hiking trip only to fall to their very slow death at the bottom of a ravine. Her non-mage soulmates had collapsed with different symptoms and- okay, this one isn’t a happy ending. He moves on to the next. Okay, this one’s a completely mundane triad who’d, one of whom had gone into labor far too early. His magic might be the key. If he’s fine, then he can fix it. If he can find the third, he can fix it. If werewolf healing couldn’t kick in to save Hale, then the soulmate bond could (in theory) link the three of them together without all three of them having to be in the same place at the same time. If they can just _find_ the guy in time...

Every now and then there’s a rush in the main room as someone catches a new possible lead - Stiles blocks everything out but the books and screen in front of him-

- _the bond_.

Obvious, so fucking obvious, but he’s been swept up in the panic of the night. Being a mage means he can see magic when he puts his mind to it, even (especially) psychic ones. He hadn’t even thought to close his eyes and _look at the bond_ , so focused he’s been on reading about it. He closes his eyes and pushes his senses inward.

_Woah._

That’s-

-huh.

He’d expected to see was a bond visualized as rope, maybe, that led to a mind he’d recognize as Hale. What he actually sees? Vines. Dark green, mossy, multiple. Maybe because he’s mated to a werewolf? He doesn’t know Peter well enough to make any kind of judgement but something about the color of the vines in his head remind him of...stillness. He’s going to tackle that puzzle later, for now he lets instinct prompt him into sending his consciousness into the vine and down the bond. He’s being reckless but, again - no choice. Only trained Seers are supposed to head into people’s heads but time is against Stiles and no amount of research can help him now. He goes for broke and pushes a thought out into the vines.

_Peter?_

Nothing. Just a hum. It’s not even really a responsive hum, sadly, more of the kind of thing that sounds automatic...like a heart beating. Which he supposes is reassuring because it means _Peter_ ’ _s_ heart is still beating. Probably.

_Peter?_

... **_who?_ **

He’s so startled by the sleepy echoing response that he snaps back into the physical world to find that he’s slumped over the desk, head cushioned in his arms. He’s so frickin’ surprised that this communication is possible through the bond - and he’s so _dumb_ to not have figured this out on the flight over - but after a solid look to make sure no one’s paying attention, he puts his head down and dives in again.

_Peter._

A sense of mild amusement and impatience.

**_Yes,_ I _know who I am. The question is - who are you?_**

_I’m_ -

Is he supposed to let the cat out of the bag? He’s flying blind here - he knows enough to do this little bit of bond magic but the few accounts he's ever read say that Peter  _should_ recognize that the only person (people) capable of speaking to him mind-to-mind are the ones he's supposed to get mated to. But then again it shouldn't be possible for both him and the other one to be dying so, really, amnesia would be the least shocking development-   _  
_

_-your Soulmate._

**_You sound young._ **

Well, fuck, that answers that. The guy’s consciousness doesn’t seem to know who he is or that he’d ran off to go find their third. He’s got to keep this going anyway.

_Apparently, I’m practically half your age._

**_I never_ ** **did** **_get around to robbing a cradle._ **

_Wow, you can’t_ not _be creepy even at a time like this?_

**_Creepy?_ **

_We’re going to pretend you’re not inappropriately delighted that I’m so much younger?_

**_Mind your manners around your elders._ ** Oh, Peter’s definitely amused _and_ pleased, but it’s muted by something that Stiles has a hard time identifying. **_If you’re in my head..._ **

_I’m still waiting for someone to explain to us how I got saddled with you. And, just so you know, we met at a grocery store in our hometown - honestly, you didn’t seem all that impressed._

**_Beacon...Hills? You never told me your n-_ **

“Solid lead from North!” He doesn’t know which cop shouts it through the room, ripping him straight out of his connection to Peter and into the real world. “Male, early forties, robbery midday in Roosevelt Square.”

The room leaps into a flurry of activity. Male...robbery...it takes him a minute to try and re-orient himself in the here and now. By the time his brain kicks into high gear, his Dad’s by his side. Their _third_ might have just been found.

He’s up, across the room, crouched behind an officer typing _Christopher Argent_ into the database and-

-it’s a punch to the solar plexus. How did the Seer describe him again? Right - white male, grey eyes, salt-and-pepper hair - all true. They don’t really do the unsmiling man in this Portland, OR driver’s license justice though. He Something about him says ‘stern dad’ actually. Where Peter’s eyes are a dangerous pretty blue, Christopher Argent has wary grey eyes that look like they see everything and trust none of it. And they’re in a face that _feels_ familiar, the same way Peter’s did in that grocery store-

-and then he’s ass down, sightless, on the cold floor of the main room and pain is singing through his chest.

“Jesus,” he hears from a long way off, “son? Stiles? Stiles, you okay?”

Holy shit.

“Stiles.”

Did they just-

"Stiles!"

Sight rushes back, thank _fuck_ , and his Dad has his arms around him, with half the precinct crowded around them. He probably looks like death but, hey, he’s allowed to since he’s part of a triad which means _mystical bonding power_ and, wow, what the actual fuck because this time he didn’t even need to be in the guy’s vicinity-

“Stiles, _what_ -”

He sucks in a shaky breath through the pain, and his Dad backs off enough to let him unbutton his shirt. He looks up just in time to see raised eyebrows on every face in the room and his Dad going slack with shock.  

There - the skin above his heart is an angry glistening red burn.

“Lucky I didn’t even need to go up in flames for a Mark to materialize this time, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter! I promise I'll quit these cliffhangers just as soon as everyone's out of danger.


	7. toujours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Toujours,” he murmurs to the dark ceiling. “La famille d'abord.”

Once, when he’s six and Katie is two, Mom takes them out to the lake at the very edge of their property. She says, “watch out for Katie, baby” so he does. He holds her fat fingers and crouches down with her in the mud to play with the rocks at the shore. When Katie stumbles and falls, his mom moves to pick her up but he says “no, no” and does it himself. His baby sister doesn’t cry, so he doesn’t let her go.

-/-

“What’s a soulmate?”

Perry lives next door, and is his best friend. Perry’s the smartest boy in school - but not the smartest kid because Annie May always gets everything right, even when Perry doesn’t. But Perry knows a lot of things so he asks him this.

“People who love each other.”

“Do they _have_ to?”

“Dunno but I think so.”

-/-

He’s nine when he realizes that dogs are his favorite. Cats are nice too but they don’t like to be cuddled - his Aunt Edna’s cat _really_ doesn’t like to be cuddled. But his cousins Tommy and Tara have two dogs - one’s a boxer and the other’s a German Shepherd and both of them are only a couple of months old and they’re _awesome._ All they do is lick and yip and run and nap with him and Tara and Chauncey when they all get tired out. They only live across town and Chris gets to go there twice a week after school and every Saturday. When his family up and moves out of the state and into the woods with Aunt Marie and Uncle Bobby the summer before 3rd grade, he’s so sad he can’t help crying. He’ll miss his cousins a lot but he’ll miss those dogs the most.

-/-

He likes to sit out on the porch. His parents always laugh a little when it’s time to go to bed (“Come in, come in little night-owl”) but he likes the night and he likes fireflies and it’s always warm and he can sit there for hours and watch the sky. So Uncle Bobby leaves a basket of blankets just inside the front door - he drags them out every time he wants to sit outside. Sometimes Katie joins him. When she does, he spreads the blankets out on the grass.

“Why do you like it so much?” she used to ask.

Now it’s the only time she’s ever really still, when they're spread on their backs like starfish in sand. When they get cold, he brings out another blanket to pull over them and Dad leaves mugs of hot chocolate on the stairs. They burrow into each other, like two snug bugs in a rug.

-/-

He’s itchy with sweat but he’s not supposed to move or dad will be mad. The “You’re old enough to come with me now” on his eleventh birthday four months ago means his weekends are no longer free. No more lazing around, no more playing with Katie in the woods around the house, no more helping Aunt Marie with her once-a-month trips into town to get supplies or batteries or gasoline. When he’s not in the shop helping out with sales, he’s learning to shoot at targets with bows, to dismantle guns and put them back together, running drills and whispering 'family first' and _this_ ...learning how to lie still in the wild. In between lessons with his Uncle Bobby, he’s reading from books that have the family crest. He’s not stupid - the way his mother looks at him means _something_. Or that they’re waiting for something.

He’s not sure _what_ but he isn’t going to disappoint them-

-a soft human _hoot_ from his left.

Time to move.

-/-

“Katie-”

She ignores him and continues to make her way out from the bark, the way only a nine-year old could, and Chris is going to have a heart attack because that branch _cannot_ hold her weight.

“Katie, please, can you come down from there?”

She makes the face, the one that says she’s going to do the exact opposite of what he says, and he sighs because if she decides to jump down from that tree he’s going to have to catch her and if he catches her, he’s going to get another scar to go along with the two fresh ones from last weekend’s hunt. He keeps apace right under her.

“Katherine.” He puts every bit of steel he can muster into his voice because she’s old enough to know better and he doesn’t want to argue. “That branch can’t hold you so if you don’t want to get hurt, you need to get down. Now.”

“You think I’m a baby.”

“No, I think you’re my baby sister.”

“No, you think I’m a _baby_ and you won’t _teach me anything_! It’s not fair that Dad only takes you out.”

“If you come down, I swear to God I’ll start teaching you.” He eyes the branch with his heart in his throat. “But you need to come down.”

She smiles her victory too late - the branch breaks anyway.

-/-

The funeral is the first time he sees so much of his family one place since they moved to Montana. He wishes he could take a break from grieving to appreciate how great his cousins seem to be but his father is silent and cold, and his baby sister has been a wan ghost at his side for days. Aunt Marie is inconsolable with grief so it’s just him and Uncle Bobby to make arrangements. There’s tension, he knows, but he just wants his mother back. He has to get out of here for a minute, escape all the well-meaning wishes and the pity and the _confusion_ because his whole world has shattered.

“Gerard, this isn’t normal, this isn’t healthy.” His mom’s mother. “Keeping them here out in the woods with no one around for them to socialize with. I didn’t agree with it then and I don’t agree with it now.”

“With all due respect, Maman, it was our decision.”

“And it’s time to rethink that decision. Whatever your issues with magic practitioners and the like-”

“Don’t,” and his father sounds cold, colder than he’s had in the four days since they’d lost her, colder than he _should_ talking to  Grand-mère, “don’t talk to me about magic. Magic-”

“She was _my daughter_!”

The broken shout rings so loud that he feels his ears ringing in the silence, all the way out here. “Christine was my daughter, and those are _my_ grandchildren. I am still the Argent matriarch and you married into my family-”

He starts walking until he can no longer hear them.

When he gets far enough into the woods, he sits down in his stuffy formal slacks and removes his tie and stares and stares and stares at the stars.

-/-

“Come on then, Frenchie.”

On one hand, it’s hilarious. High school is _exactly_ like the novels he picks up in the library for Katie. So what if he speaks French? Don’t they teach French in high school? His family is French - of course, he speaks French. He almost can’t believe that the local bully really has decided that the new kid is easy pickings. The new kid, whose Dad owns the gun range outside of town and the gun shop here in Bethseba _and_ the gun shop two towns over. He’s pretty sure the entire school has gossiped about his scars at length – nothing about him says “easy mark”. For a minute, he wonders if all bullies are this hilariously unintelligent. But on the other hand, he’s got to get home because it’s Thursday and there’s homework to be done and tenth grade isn’t going to pass itself.

He doesn’t want to kick this kid’s ass but he -Brad? Tyler?- isn’t making it easy.

“I don’t have a problem with you, buddy.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve got one with you!”

He ducks the first punch, vaguely surprised by how quick the guy is. Just as he’s thinking that maybe he’ll just dance around and let him tire himself out, his phone goes off with the ringtone that says it’s his Dad.

“Look-”

The bully lands a punch (damn, he _is_ quick!) and Chris suddenly has had enough. He takes him down, easy, but the kid lands wrong somehow and there’s a snap of bone breaking. Snapped wrist, maybe. A short muffled yell but no scream.

 _Nothing for it now,_ he thinks. He hauls the guy up, throwing his uninjured arm over his shoulder and they head back in to see if anyone’s around to call a cab to get to the hospital.

-/-

“Sarah’s out of school because she got her Soulmate Mark!”

His ears perk up at that. She’s the only person in the entire school to have already had her Mark appear.

“She does?”

“You don’t sound impressed, Chris!” His bio lab partner teases. Itzell Morales is plump and smart and pretty when she smiles. She’s also a certified gossip so fourth period is when he (unwillingly) gets caught up on everything happening at Riverdale High. “You’re not one of those weirdos who don’t like soulmates, are you?”

He shrugs.

“Oh, you are! Aren’t your parents soulmates?”

“Actually, no.”

That takes the wind right out of Itzell’s sails.

“They...aren’t?”

“No. None of my uncles and aunts are soulmates, neither are either of my grandparents. Are yours?”

“Yes.” Her eyebrows are slowly climbing higher on her face. “Wait a second, how did your folks get together?”

“It’s an old-fashioned love-story,” he says, purposefully vague, “they met, they fell in love, they had us.”

“And _neither_ of your parents have a Soulmate mark?”

“Oh, they both do. They just chose each other.”

“What about everyone else in your family?”

When he thinks about it, actually, he’s surprised to realize that his dad’s brothers and sisters aren’t with their Soulmates either. Magic is dangerous, especially magic that they don’t understand. And no one has been able to understand why Marks appear or why they tie you to the people that they do. Frankly, his father thinks it’s the most insidious kind of magic. Actually, Aunt Edna is mated to her best friend but-

“I don’t know.”

It seems to be the safest answer in the face of Itzell’s increasing incredulity. He’s starting to remember why he doesn’t really talk all that much to any of his classmates. He can tell she doesn’t really know what to say – if she’s anything, she’s bubbly _and_ polite – so he takes pity on her and eases the conversation back to the original point.

“How do you know Sarah’s out because of her Mark?”

“Well,” she says “my dad’s a Healer, as you know, and she was brought in yesterday. Overheard him say so to my Mom. Only one reason “testing” and “teenagers” are ever mentioned in one sentence!”

“Cool.”

“Cool? That’s all you’ve got? Soulmates are literally the other half of your _soul_ . Sarah’s for sure got someone out there who _completes_ her. Wouldn’t you want someone to complete _you_?”

He honestly doesn’t see the fuss. But he has a feeling saying so will just get his lab partner into a tizzy, and they’ve got a dissection to do.

“Sure,” he says with a small smile. “Sure, I do.”

-/-

_La famille d'abord._

It comes to him the night before he graduates, laying in bed thinking about the future rolling out before him.

A mother, a father, a sister.

An aunt, an uncle.

These woods, those trips, his gun.

“Toujours,” he murmurs to the dark ceiling. “La famille d'abord.”

-/-

College is a brand new world.

It’s both easier and harder than high school. High school had been culture shock for a home-schooled survivalist but it had been small and kind of manageable. But there are so many different _types_ of people. A whole world of people. And one person in particular that he can’t seem to shake.

Ania-Lisa Etienne is the first person he bumps into on the University of Montana campus. She’s Haitian-American (“And proud of it!”) and _loud_ (“Don’t you know any people who are part of big families?”) and relentless (the minute she finds out he speaks French, she refuses to call him anything other than _Christophe_ ). She’s a mage majoring in Comparative Linguistics, her dorm room is messy with texts he's never seen before. She’s tall and her hair goes from braids to twists to- (“Blowouts, Christophe, have you _never_ had a black friend who’s a girl?”)- and half of their Honors Literature class is secretly in love with her. She’s basically the most interesting person he’s ever met and the most _real_ , and halfway through the first semester he’s _baffled_ to realize he might have stumbled into genuine friendship.

He spends a miserable misguided week trying to push her away - old habits die hard – and Ania is understandably confused. He sees her across the quad Thursday afternoon and high-tails it out of there when she starts waving over at him.

She shows up at his dorm room that night after her 6pm Intro to Core Spell Work, confused and a little pissed.

“What is _wrong_ with you? Are you avoiding me?” He feels stupid when she says it like that. “Christophe, really, what the hell?”

“I’m sorry.” He’s an idiot. “I-”

“…yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

He offers her a smile. “And you didn’t accept it the first time.”

Ania leans against his doorway without saying a word. He falters.

“I’ve never had a best friend before,” he admits.

“I figured. When you do talk about the people you love, you only really ever talk about your father and your baby sis.”

_La famille d'abord._

He must look pathetic because she finally takes mercy on him and comes fully into his dorm room and swings up unto the bed beside him. When she knocks her shoulders into his, he knows he’s forgiven.

“Are you done running?”

 _‘From this’_ , she’s really asking. ‘ _From me’_.

“Yes.”

-/-

"Are you coming for Thanksgiving this year?"

Away from home, he's finally rebuilding some of his relationships with other Argents - having his grandmother in his life has been...interesting. Her sense of humor reminds him of Katie but she's kind, and intuitive. He can't help wondering if this is what it would have been like if his mother had been alive. He can't help feeling like he's been cheated out of a relationship with someone who understands him.

"Yes." His Dad will be mad, yes, but he won't stop him. "I am, Mémère."

-/-

“What, you’d write off an entire group of people because of the way they look?” He doesn’t understand why she’s so angry but she’s not done yet. “Because of the way their magic presents?”

“That’s just how I was raised, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Then you were raised in the household of a bigot and you’re going to _become_ one.”

They’re at a standstill in the middle of the hallway in Kellas building, and now he’s _angry_ because there’s nothing wrong with his family and she’s jumping to conclusions about his character based off one conversation when they’ve been practically inseparable since before Thanksgiving Break.

“Ania-”

“No.” She hefts her backpack more securely over her shoulders. “Do some reading. Or some soul-searching. Or whatever. Enroll in African-American studies and Were Relations while you’re at it.”

When she walks away from him for the first time ever, he’s surprised to feel angry _and_ hurt.

-/-

There’s an ice cream shop right off that he goes to most of first semester of sophomore year. It’s always well-lit and he can spread out his books and study. He can people-watch when he’s bored, too, because students and non-students come here for dessert. It’s nice. It’s nice to see families come and go, especially the loud little kids with their noses pressed against the glass. So many choices for them, so many options for them to choose from.

-/-

“You’re coming for graduation, right?”

Normally, he would just say yes and keep listening to her tell him about her last few weeks as a high-schooler. Katie is smart and sly and self-assured. But there’s something fragile, something plaintive in the way she asks the question and his senses tingle in vague alarm. He hesitates for a minute – on one hand, a direct approach is the quickest way to alienate Katie when she’s feeling prickly but he’s also never heard her sound like this. _No_ , he thinks decisively. He has two weeks home before his summer classes start. He’ll get it out of her then.

“Chris?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, I’m coming.”

“Good.”

-/-

Business school is pretty interesting. Sometimes the day-to-day doesn’t seem all that relevant –economics is mind-numbingly boring – but other classes are interesting. Product management, sales, and business administration…yeah, he’s starting to think about what he’s going to do five, even _ten_ years down the line. He’s going to take over Argent Arms. It’s all good planning, anyway.

But you know what else is interesting? Magic. He has not a lick of magic in his blood but Ania doesn’t care. She’s forever yammering on about how accents causing varying pronunciations of the same charms account for why Spanish-speaking mages practicing spoken charms that rolled the _r_ vowel produced more powerful magic. She even drags him into fieldwork when he’s not at the gym - he's got all of Portland's ley lines mapped by October, can spout of a pretty basic understanding of housing zoning laws in the city, _and_ can name specific city neighborhoods that allow for magic practice on site. Basically, he’s learning way more than he could ever have imagined about the connection between both spoken word and written word and magic.

He’s practically audited half of Ania’s classes over the last three years anyway. Comparative linguistics doesn’t actually require any magic at all, and it’s not like it’d be a burden to pick it up as a minor as a junior. He still doesn’t tell his father when he goes home for Christmas break.

-/-

If he gets a job, he won’t have to rely on family money. And as the Etiennes point out – he can afford to do more than study and hang around. Third years should be more independent (he can see right through Ania and Jacques, they’re not _half_ as clever as they think they are) and that’s true. Katie agrees though, because she’s already landed a job at the University of Portland school bookstore.

In a very lucky coincidence, the gun range over in the next city is hiring for a book-keeper’s assistant. He goes on a whim. And how about that? He finds himself hired.

-/-

“Bobby and I have to go out of town again, this weekend. I need you to drive down and mind the shop Saturday and Sunday.”

 _Shit._ He’s already promised Ania that he’ll drive her down to Springfield to do some mage interviews.

“Dad-”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t absolutely need you here, Chris, you know that.”

Well.

Looks like he’s heading home this weekend.

-/-

He staggers out of bed, feverish and achy. His back hurts something awful. His neck feels swollen. It’s the flu, probably, it’s been going around but he’d thought he’d been good with vitamins and water. He stumbles into the shared bathroom, so glad Rick is already in class so he can throw up or poop or whatever his body wants to do to get better. When his system doesn’t decide either way, he shuffles back to bed to fall into a restless sleep. Almost seven hours later, he wakes up feeling worse for wear in the dark. He musters enough energy to make excuses to Katie because he’s not going to make it to dinner tonight, and tells Ania he’s exhausted. He figures he’ll sleep this – whatever it is – off.

Three miserable days later, he emerges from a shower (finally), slings the towel around his waist It isn’t until he turns away from the mirror that he catches something wet and raw-looking between his shoulder blades.

The next five minutes are filled with panic because he doesn’t remember getting that and can’t make out what it is before-

_Oh._

He doesn’t tell anyone he’s been Marked, not even Ania, not until after they leave university for good.

-/-

The Chris Argent he was in the Fall of 1991 is not the same Chris Argent standing here at Commencement four years later and he can lay so much of that at the foot of friendship.

He accepts that endings are natural and _right_ , but his college graduation is harder than anything else if only because he now has someone to say goodbye to.

If Ania hadn’t adopted him within his first month on campus, his life would have been a very different story. He’s fought with her and hassled her and made fun of her and he could have never imagined having a best friend so _opposite_ of himself. His horizons would have never broadened so widely - he would have never started talking to witches and wizards in his classes, or the Spark that owns the comic store two miles from campus, or the were-bear the floor down from him. She's challenged him in ways he can't have ever anticipated. He’s so much a part of her family now - he’s tutored her brothers in Econ and eaten her father’s cooking and babysat her cousins on countless memorable occasions. 

He’s getting better about feelings, though, so he’s the first to pull her to him when the room erupts, classmates throw hats and scarves and bells into the-

-/-

He’s home for a few months to help with the shop, while he looks for more business internships. Trips with his Dad every weekend now, and there’s something _odd_ about them. He spends more time sitting in a car, outside meetings that would make law enforcement uncomfortable, about rights and magic and “those better suited to lead” and-

-/-

Victoria Smith is the red-headed niece of Timothy Gunn, Uncle Bobby’s good friend from the Andirondacks. He falls for her the minute he sets eyes on her, and has to scheme his way into getting Tim to give up her contact information. It takes him two months wooing her into giving him the time of day. He kisses her in the middle of winter in front of Walgreens, both their lips chapped, snow melting in her lashes.

For the first time in his life, he’s in love with the curve of someone’s shoulder. He mouths adoration into pale skin, kisses affection along her brows and her hands, presses devotion into the flesh over her spine.

Now he understands.

The whole world is a love song-

-/-

They're naming her Allison if she’s a girl and Bryce if he’s a boy.

Despite the fact that he isn’t entirely sure that Vicky and Ania even get along, Vicky is first to name her godmother because (and he quotes) “she's practically your sister”. His best and oldest friend says yes without any hesitation over the phone-

-/-

“Good job, son,” his Dad at his wedding, the _she’s human_ implied rather than said. His father has never been comfortable with his relationship with Ania and her family, and he counts it a miracle that it's been relatively polite through the reception. Maybe it's because he's so damned happy he gets to marry Vicky, soulmate or not, her tummy swelling out underneath her wedding dress. But his Dad is still a problem and he's uncomfortable, thinking of his first real fight with Ania, about isms and bias against magic wielders. He’s grown up, now, he should be able to correct his father–

-/-

He doesn’t recognize the man that gave birth to him, in that moment. Wild hair, wild eyes.

There’s blood on his hands-

\- _where is Uncle Bobby?_

He wants to shake him and shake himself and shake apart and forget the last five minutes of his life.

"Dad, what have you _done_?"

-/-

“Family over everything," he thinks over and over at the hearing. It's the only thing he can cling to when they outline a trail of horror, spanning across states, across a decade.

Family over everything.

_Family over everyth-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter - (some of) Christopher Argent's life in brief incomplete snapshots while he's unconscious, confused, and dying.


	8. flickering flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t spare anything for much of anything because for the first time in his life he’s looking at himself on someone else’s skin.
> 
> He feels like he’s been shoved.

His head feels clear. 

Startlingly  clear, actually.  His chest is a somewhat distant concern while his magic simmers, like it had in the first few minutes after he’d met Peter,   just  not as wild and uncontrollable. He knows, down to his bones, how different types of magic weigh on the senses – it’s not  just  being a Spark it’s knowing what it feels like to encourage life to grow, or coax bones to mend.  His magic is changing. He’d worry about it if it was trying to manifest itself the way it had when he’d met Peter, but it isn’t. It’s  just  a steady sound in the background,  mostly  content to  be ignored  until he wants to _use_ it. 

Which is good, because he’s got pretty much no brain space to devote to that puzzle when something  just  as life-changing is sliding into place.  He now has a name (and a hospital) to go with a face _and_ he can feel his soulmate bonds with every breath he takes.

Talk about disconcerting.  The textbooks, the YA novels, the obnoxious rom-coms Kira and Boyd love to watch – nothing’s prepped him for this feeling. He’s stumped– no, _floored_ by how out of nothing there’s  suddenly  a whole lot of something. They’re like candles,  maybe , or vines - it’s hard to decide which- and they’re-

-dying.

His Soulmates are dying.

And he can _feel_ that now. But he won’t let them die, not if there’s room to fix this.

Deaton answers on the third ring.

“Have you found your third soulmate?”

“On my way to Seattle General. Deaton, the minute I saw his picture in color I  was Marked. One minute I'm looking at his photo, the next I'm blinking at the ceiling with a brand new Mark burned into my chest. Now I can feel-”

_-that they’re both fading-_

“-that they’re in danger. I tried connecting with Peter without a Guide right before we ID’d our third, and he was lucid enough for mind-to-mind dialogue but didn’t seem to remember me or that he had a soulmate.”

Which, now that he’s thinking about it, is a bit worrying – contrary to what folks thought before unconsciousness, most people are actually aware of what’s happened to them, despite being under.  No one had any idea what had happened to Peter other than an inability to complete the Change since he’d shown no other signs of physical trauma.

“Was he confused?”

“He believed me when I said I was his soulmate, but he didn’t remember anything about me or why he’s unconscious.”

“'Cut out'?"

"I couldn't finish talking to him."

"Why? How did you break the connection?”

“I connected in the middle of the precinct and  was kind of slammed out of it when they matched the sketch and a distress call to Christopher Argent.”

Prolonged silence _again ._

Oh, God. The kind of silence that said his theory was right, that sudden disconnection would be as jolting for an unconscious person as  being shoved  out of a moving car. 

 “…Deaton?” 

“Peter didn’t know you or he didn’t remember he had a soulmate?”

“If I had to guess - both.”

“And when you saw your third soulmate’s photo, you lost consciousness for how long? And did you spark?”

“Definitely no more than a minute? No flames this time. I  barely  had time to recognize that I  was supposed  to feel something before I was looking up at the ceiling.  And now that I’m on the way to the hospital, it’s taken a backseat in light of all the-” - _dying everybody_ but _me is busy with_ \- “-things that are going on.”

“How’s the pain in your chest?”

It takes him a minute to sort through the question, to remember his night had begun with a weight on his chest.

“Can’t tell - second Mark’s on my chest so I’m having a little bit of trouble separating one thing from the other.”

“Find a Guide as soon as you get there. I’ll check in with the Hales and call you back.”

“You’ve got some theories?” he asks  tiredly. “Because I could use some.”

“Theories, yes, and back-up incoming – I’ll call Seattle GH  personally  once you hang up, then get Ngozi and Amrit on the phone.” There’s a muffled voice in the background before Deaton clicks off curtly.

He debates calling the Hales but settles for text instead. The rest of the cab ride is a blur - he’s busy with his eyes shut, senses turned inward. He doesn’t dare reach out to Peter again, not without any answers, but the werewolf is a dull steady pulse at least. He’s not well, not with how dim he feels inside Stiles but whatever’s going wrong with him is at least slow and steady. He can’t say the same for Christopher Argent - there are wild spikes in his energy. Erratic highs and lows like a guttering candle. And what an image - he’s gotta fight down a wave of helplessness.

He shoves a fifty at the driver and tumbles out of the cab as soon as it comes to a stop, breaking into a run before he can help it.  The place is not  nearly  as empty as anyone would assume for 8 in the morning - two Asian families off to his left, and an elderly white couple half-asleep closer to the information desk. He stops when he gets there and the nurse on duty gives him a minute to catch his breath. 

“How can I help you?”

“My soulmate-” Stiles stops then starts over, “-my name is Stiles Stilinski, I’m from Beacon Hills - they may have called ahead - and  I think  my soulmate is being hospitalized here ? Christopher Argent.”

The nurse’s face tightens but before either of them can say anything else, another voice breaks in behind him.

“I’m sorry, did you say…Soulmate?” He turns to see a pretty young woman, thick wavy brown hair, and bloodshot eyes. She’s staring at him in shock. “Christopher Argent?”

“Yeah.” He looks between her and the guy behind the desk, but she’s standing there shaking her head  absently. “You-”

“-are his daughter. And, to the best of my knowledge, he doesn’t _have_ a soulmate.”

He freezes for a full minute.

_A daughter._

When his brain resumes warp speed, he’s recalibrating, mapping out all the new ways he’s going to have to adjust for  additional  concerned family, pushing everything else to the bottom of the list of things he’s got to worry about. _Of course_ , there’s family. He  just  hadn’t thought.  He gives her the universal sign for ‘hold up’ and turns back to the front desk where the guy seems to be doing his best to maintain a professionalism front while looking like he too is wondering why this has turned into a soap opera.

“Nurse-” Stiles eyes flick to the nametag, “Thornton, is it? Could you find out whether anyone from Beacon Hills has called in? If they have, it’ll be easier to...explain. And I’ll need a Guide once you do.”

He only turns away once Nurse Thornton has nodded, and the Surprise Argent Daughter has her arms crossed  expectantly  and looks like she’s considering calling for security.

_Christopher Argent is a father_.

His daughter is around his age.

Which means there’s a mother somewhere.

Jesus.

Okay, well, best way to do this is to  just  dive right in - and by dive in he means begin at the beginning before she actually calls for hospital guards.

“I’m Stiles Stilinski, and I grew up in Northern Californian town called Beacon Hills. About a week ago, I was back in my hometown doing grocery shopping, and surprise! I bumped into someone in the store who turned out to be my soulmate. After a really public bit of dramatic magic, we were both Marked.  But when we got tested by the doctors, our bond levels were off. So long story short, they called in a bunch of specialists from across the country who told that they believed our bond was incomplete.”

She looks _exactly_ the way he felt when he first heard - which means they  really  should sit before he keeps going. In hindsight, he  maybe  had dived in a bit too  quickly.

“Maybe-” his mouth’s gotten away from him already, “maybe  we should sit for this?”

No way she’s normally  this biddable but shock means she follows him to the seats a few feet way.

"You’re saying that you - my _dad_ – you’re actually part of a _triad_?”

 “Yeah.”

He gives her a minute. 

“I would point out that my dad doesn’t have soulmates but you seem pretty convinced.”

“I _literally_ looked at a photo of your Dad an hour ago in a police precinct, lost consciousness, and woke up Marked.” That possibly  comes out more glib than he intended. He takes a breath, tries again.“Yes, I’m pretty close to 100% sure he’s part of our triad.”

“That’s not-” 

“-possible?" He huffs out a tired laugh. "Yeah, trust me, this whole thing has been pretty impossible.”

“Wait. If that happened less than an hour ago, how are you standing?”  He’s  concretely  impressed that there’s a person other than Kira whose eyes are capable of going Disney-princess-wide in dismay. “Your Mark-”

“Well.” He blinks  slowly. “Well, yes, I’ve been running on adrenaline for the last 12 hours but-”

He’s left talking at air when she strides to the front desk but lets it go because he's pretty sure she's gone off to get help. The pain is...present, now that he thinks about it. But he is  literally  running on icy determination and there's been no time for anything but either panic or logic so, sue him, his chest is pretty low on his list of worries. She returns with narrowed eyes that put him  strongly  in mind of Melissa McCall. “I informed the Nurse - can’t have you land in a bed upstairs too.”

He’s… really  touched.

“I’d thank you by name, but-”

“Allison.”  She extends a hand – he instinctively sweeps to see if it can catch anything off her but she pulls away before he can gauge her level of magic. And then he kicks himself because that’s rude and it’s a good thing she doesn’t realize what he’d almost done. “Only child. My mom died when I was eleven so” she trails off  awkwardly  for a second before pushing on. “Anyway. How did you know Dad’s here?”

“Well, our other mate,” he  barely  stumbles around the word ‘our’, “Peter Hale, has lived in my hometown most of his life yet I'd never laid eyes on him before last week. Once we  were Marked, he felt this thing that's rare for werewolves - it's called the Pull-”

“Wait, wait, wait.” She all but shoves a hand in his face - “you had to _see_ your soulmate to  be Marked ? That’s-”

“-rare, I know.” Their bond is unusual in every single sense of the world.  Most people get the Mark before they hit college, then stumble into their soulmates sometime before they graduate (there’s a whole body of work on bond magic and inevitability slash destiny), and see them and know they’re looking at The One. “And it’s more like my magic went haywire and he had to touch me for the Mark to burn.

He could… probably  knock her over with a feather, Allison Argent is so  visibly  faint.

“So you,” she says  faintly  , “you…  just  … _didn’t_ have a Mark until a week ago.”

“…yeah, pretty much." 

“And now you have two. And the other man is a...werewolf? Doesn’t that mean that this guy’s healing should have kicked in for Dad? What the hell is going on?” She drops her head into her hands. “Okay, so he feels a pull-”

“No, the Pull, which is  basically  an internal honing slash sixth sense thing that leads weres to their soulmates sometimes  . It led him here to Seattle so...he got pretty close,  possibly  , but didn’t actually find him before  all of  this. And whatever happened to your Dad  is connected  to whatever’s happening to him.”

“There’s something wrong with him, too?”

“Peter’s-” He stops,  inexplicably. He’d boxed up how he felt about it up until he was sitting in front of a girl he didn’t know existed, in the lobby of a hospital in a city he’s never been to - while they both try to process the sheer impossibility of the situation. Saying it is hard. _So_ hard. 

“Peter is in a coma.”

The bonds are flickering, his chest is raw, he’s exhausted and running on sheer focus alone but _saying it_ is so hard. He sucks in a deep measured breath before he keeps going.

“One of my best friends is a Banshee.”  Allison Argent pales – he’s usually way more tactful than this, he’s gotta be more distressed than he thinks - and he winces again.  “She’s unusual - she usually sees enough detail to be able to prevent death from occurring and she saw your Dad and knew instinctively he was my mate  .  And after that, I hopped on a flight here and - again, long story short - about an hour ago I finally looked at a photo of your Dad in the DMV database and  was Marked.

“Her Telling showed both of them. We don’t know why Peter’s in a coma, and we only  just  found out about your Dad in the last hour but we’re going to figure it out. All we know is that something happened in a parking lot and he had a head injury. Can you...will you tell me what happened?”

“Yeah, of course. We-” She stops, clears her throat. “We  were supposed  to have brunch - he went out to the store and never came back. By 3pm, I was in my car and heading to the nearest police station. The hospital didn’t call me until 6pm. I saw him for all over 15 minutes before-” her voice cracks in two, “he flatlined right there.”

Oh.

“It’s been a blur since then.  They stabilized him but right around 11pm-” which was when Lydia and Jackson had gotten in, he thinks, “-his vitals dipped and they hustled me out . There was bleeding in his brain.”

Oh, Jesus.

He reaches for Allison’s hand. She lets him take it. She needs to  be held and he needs something to hold on to. After all, he doesn’t know Christopher Argent - he’s only losing a possibility. She’s losing her father.

Before he can say something one way or another, medical staff - like, a whole _fleet_ of them - descend upon them.  The tallest of them introduces herself as the Stephanie Hernandez, Chief Guide, before indicating Head of Surgery Farah Abdour and Head Physician Linda Smoot behind her.  The three of them are all stoic – which could mean any manner of things – but when Chief Hernandez finishes her round of introductions, she rocks back on her heels and gives them both a frank look.

“Let’s get you upstairs and take a look at your Mark,  shall  we? Would you prefer Ms. Argent remain here?”

“Are you uncomfortable coming up?” he asks Allison, who  just  shakes her head.

“Great. While we walk, we can fill each other in,” Guide Hernandez says  briskly.  The hallways are somewhat deserted, except for their large group making its way to the elevator.  “Beacon Hills called ahead - we’re fast-tracking your records, and Director Deaton is  personally  gathering your specialists for a video conference as we speak.”

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised - after all, they’re the first American triad including a Spark and a were in over a century. Of _course_ they’re worth a phone call in the middle of the night.

“And Peter’s doctors?”

“They’re calling in, since it’ll  probably  be best if we all get in one room so you can run through events once.” She indicates the open door they’ve all stopped at. “We’ll examine you in here.”

If the situation weren’t so dire, he’d  be amused  at the fact that he’s got a literal team of health practitioners  critically  staring him down while he throws off his hoodie and unbuttons his shirt.  Now that they’re seeing to it, the pain of his Mark has surged to the forefront – and he’s pretty amazed that he was able to ignore it for so long  .  The skin feels stretched and wet (which is par the course, and what a mindfuck that he can say that  knowledgeably) and he has to peel the fabric of his shirt away  slowly  and  carefully.  It looks angry and red from the top down - no one will be able to make out its shape for another two weeks - and it’s bigger than he’d suspected in the precinct. Again, no way to tell for sure until the swelling goes down. He breathes in through his nose while he struggles to get bare-chested. It’s not pass-out levels awful, but he’s panting by the time he finally eases the shirt off his shoulders.

“How-” fuck, that is _painful,_  “-how’s it look?”

Dr. Smoot spares him a smile as she snaps on gloves. “Graphic. On a scale of one to ten, what are you at, Mr. Stilinski?”

“A solid seven.”

“We’ll try to make this part as painless as possible.”

When she motions him unto his back, he’s lulled into a sense of pained fatigue. He could nap.  If his chest wasn’t on fire and she wasn’t about to take a sharp scalpel to the new Mark and his soulmates weren’t dying, he could nap.  He grits his teeth through the longest five minutes of his life - for awhile there, it’s touch-and-go on whether he’ll blackout - and when Dr. Smoot’s collected enough skin, he lets his brain wander into a haze of pained exhaustion.  He’s only half-alert through cleaning up the local anesthetic gel, the caliper measurements, and smoothing on the ointment. She’s kind enough to not only apply a bandage to this new Mark but changes the one on his shoulder for good measure.

“Better?”

“Somewhere between a four and a five.” He can breathe without hissing and his shoulder isn’t throbbing in tandem. It’ll have to do until everyone else is out of mortal peril. “ Shall  we, then?”

-/-

They end up in an auditorium that kind of reminds him of every doctor soap he’s ever watched, and Allison takes the seat next to his unprompted  When Deaton’s face appears on screen he spares a moment to think about how safe and uncomplicated his life was at this same time two weeks ago.  Amrit Giridharan and Ngozi Achebe (he’s been referring to them as Dr. G and Dr. A in his head _and_ to their faces) slide into view, the former  clearly  on duty at her hospital in Denver and the latter looking like a couple of cups of coffee helped get her presentable.  

There’s a soft _ping_ , then four new faces pop up in a fourth box on the first screen – Stiles blinks before he realizes he’s not seeing double.  There are two identical black men on screen, one with snazzy silver glasses and the other without, both with the kind of professional weariness that makes him think they’ve been in doctors way longer than their looks appear to  indicate. Talia and Andrew  are seated  next to them, looking  just  about as tired and stressed as one would think.  Introductions begin again for everyone involved, and the twin physicians introduce themselves as Brendan and Maxwell Gerald, Medical Director and Chief of Staff  respectively  of Virginia Mason and Seattle Center.

“Let’s get to it,  shall  we?”  Guide Hernandez claps  briskly, then pulls up what looks like three different medical histories and a manuscript of Lydia’s Telling. The other - he sees the word ‘concussion’ and ‘flatline’ - is Christopher Argent’s. “Stiles?”

The rundown is as factual as he can make it.

He starts with the day he met Peter Hale, ignoring how weird it feels to be talking about something that’s kind of private  .  He offers as many details as he can because he doesn’t know what’s going to be important going into problem-solving their way out of possible death.  Deaton fills in where he can, about the days Stiles spent unconscious with his Spark sputtering and weak. He didn’t know Peter was at the hospital everyday, actually. Well...he wouldn’t, would he - seeing as everything had gone to shit pretty soon after. Still, he’s surprised that Deaton’s being so...upfront. Stoic, yes, but upfront.  Dr. Smoot asks questions about Stiles’ baseline magic after bonding with Peter, and his specialists plug in answers. When everyone’s satisfied that they understand as much as  humanly  possible about his and Peter’s bonding, Stiles picks up the tale with the events of the last ten hours. All the while, he does his best to not let his  erratically  dimming bonds distract him.

When he’s done, one of the twins – Brendan,  maybe  – leans toward their camera. “And you went looking for Peter Hale through the bond unprompted?”

Stiles shrugs. “I get that it’s usually dangerous but -  obviously , circumstances being what they are - I felt like I had to do it.”

“I’m not admonishing you at all, Stiles.” He and his twin share a look before he turns back to the camera. “Out of  all of  us, you are most likely to  consistently  reach him.  What I’m asking after is how you took less than five minutes to visualize the bond and establish a connection strong enough to allow full sentences through. It’s unusual." 

Codeword for rare, which means _again_ no precedent. He’s going to be _so tired_ of that word soon.

“If we may?”  The twins arch eyebrows at the same time, and Guide Hernandez makes an encouraging gesture.

“As far as we can tell, Peter Hale was having lunch at a diner on the East side when he went outside to make a call.” Sounds about right. Talia and Andrew remain  perfectly  still off to the left. “The timeline puts Christopher Argent’s injury at a little past noon, yes?  So we’re guessing that whatever happened to Christopher Argent hit Peter no more than thirty minutes later  He  was brought  in around 2pm this afternoon, stuck halfway in transition and conscious up until we got him.  Unfortunately,  being frozen  in transition wreaked as much as havoc as one can expect – some organs were human while others had shifted to become smaller, in anticipation of a full-wolf transition.”

“Normally,” picks up the other twin, “with as much internal bleeding as Peter Hale had, we would operate.  But operating on a were in this state is dangerous, and we brought in a Breaker and a Guide because we assumed this was a curse gone wrong. He remained unresponsive. We did what we could to staunch the bleeding without surgery. Around 8pm, his transition reversed over the course of half an hour. Once he was  fully  in human form, our team chose to operate. Since then, we’ve kept him as stable as possible. Brain activity spiked a little over an hour ago, which seems to correspond to when you reached out.”

Stiles thinks he does an admirable job not dwelling on images of both Peter Hale and Christopher Argent coding in hospital beds, and checks back in  just  in time to hear Guide Hernandez ask-

“-been unresponsive to everything since then?”

Both Dr. Geralds nod. “He's comatose, a locked level 3. Stable, unresponsive despite what looks like above normal brain activity. Our Guides can’t get in.”

“Going to interject here,” Dr. Smoot picks up, “you should all know that Christopher Argent  is Marked  , and all signs point to _both_ _Marks_ being at least a decade old.”

...huh. Well.

Not that he’d seen _years passing between Mark appearances_  coming but, you know,  _nothing_ about this triad has been normal. To be honest, he can barely work up a 'meh'.

However, the rest of the room is pin-drop silent. For the first time in Stiles’ life, Deaton _visibly_ registers shock.  Dr. G looks torn between professionalism and disbelief, Dr. A appears to be contemplating more coffee, and both sets of Gerald eyebrows are somewhere in their hairlines. When he turns to look at Allison, she looks like she doesn’t know why the world’s throwing curveball after curveball. Him though? There’s nothing else this night can throw at him that he won’t roll with.

“Just  to make sure we’re all shocked for the same reason,” Talia says in an even voice, “Marks in most racial and ethnic groups appear at the same time on everyone involved, yes?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is this impossible or improbable?” Talia continues. 

The doctors in this room seem to glance at each other before looking at the folks on camera. Dr. A shakes herself out of her and the sound of furious typing and clicking fills the amphitheater from her end.

“Yes, well, there have been four known cases in the last hundred years of Bond study, of soulmate pairs where one person’s Mark didn’t materialize until they met.” She stops, reads something, speeds on.  “It’s never  been studied  from the side of the person who already has the Mark -  obviously, because the situation only becomes clear after the second person’s corresponding Mark materializes, which means that years have more than likely gone by so no…tests done outside of standard exams if they were in college.”

“So,” Talia continues  calmly, “what you’re saying is that this is  highly  improbable, yes, but has happened before.”

“Yes, exactly. Linda, would you be so kind  as to  pull up his Marks?”

Allison sighs to his left - and he reads ‘oh no’ and ‘how did I never suspect it’ off the sound alone - but he doesn’t spare anything for much of _anything_ because for the first time in his life he’s looking at _himself on someone else’s skin._

He feels like he’s  been shoved.

“When I was little,” Allison says into the silence, “he told me those were tattoos.”

It’s not unusual. It’s bigger in the South, yeah, but a about a tenth of the population get their soulmarks lined or filled with ink.  Marks were more often than not some sort of representation of what your soulmate represented to you, and most folks showed up on their bonded’s flesh as something normal. You could usually tell when you were looking at a Mark because the burns  were raised  skin half the time - but not always.  In theory, it’s the kind of thing someone who likes nature or seasons or celestial magic (not that there’re a ton of folks born that could control elements and survive to adulthood, actually) would get.  He can see how anyone looking at Christopher Argent’s ink might think they were looking at regular tattoos instead of filled in burns.

He and Peter Hale  are reflected  in stylized celestial bodies, no more than 6 inch x 6 inch space, lined up almost  perfectly  with the top of his spine. It looks neat - and dangerous. The crescent moon is a sharp looking curve with precise lines and exact angles. The ink must  be spelled  – the silver of the moon looks static onscreen but he’s got a feeling it glimmers on and off in the light. The moon reminds of a blade, a wielded scythe - and of Peter.

“I can see why,” he says  faintly.

He wants to trace it so  badly  that he has to breathe in deep to ignore the urge. He must have stood the minute the Marks came on screen. He’s gotta be the sun, then – the skin is hollow and unraised but for the circle itself and the jagged looking flares. It feels odd to have so many people in the room and on the vidchat watching him look at the picture. This is usually a way less…collaborative process. _ Curious,  really_ _,_ he thinks  vaguely , _that the guy got them inked years ago - but wouldn’t go to a doctor to have them_ _ formally  looked at_.

The mystery of Christopher Argent grows by the minute.

He totally takes back the nothing-can-faze-me zen he'd had going a minute ago.

“So there’s no telling when his Marks first appeared?" 

“I’d guess somewhere between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, actually. Full body physicals  were required  up until majority in the late 80s and early 90s. He would have  been enrolled  in college by the time these appeared for a doctor to miss them.  And with a segue like that,” continues Linda, “Christopher Argent  was brought  in by paramedics after a distress call from a grocery store.” 

He listens to a run-down of Christopher’s state when he  was brought  in to Seattle General – she explains that he was unconscious when they brought him, then disoriented for a few minutes before slipping back under  .  She walks the room through phrases like " epidural hematoma" and " penetrating abdominal trauma" and " protracted subconscious resistance".  It’s enough to solidify that super sneaky super scary vision he’d had of both soulmates bleeding out in desolate places in the city, and thaaaaat’s enough for him to tune out.  He’s gotten the gist of what happened from Allison, he's scanning through the file projected on screen - he doesn't need the surround-sound.

They’re flying blind here - at least, that's what he's gathered from listening to everyone else - which is fine. Argent’s Marks had appeared right on time, for his generation, so he’d been out in the world with two soulmate Marks, while Stiles and Peter had none. He’s a cup-half-empty kind of guy, right, but objectively they’re no worse off knowing there’s  absolutely  no documented precedent.

No one's ever had to deal with this before so it's not like they're going to be fucking up a playbook.

 

What he does know is that he's connected to the two of them. Even without centering himself, he's got a brand spanking new in-built health index that makes him the best barometer in the room for whatever is going on with Christopher Argent and Peter Hale. Reaching out unsupervised _again_ is going to put him on everyone’s shit list, especially since Guide Hernandez is _right_ _here -_  but he still only  barely  leashes the desire. Without actually trying to  initiate  a link, he shoves as much good will and calm energy at them as possible. Everything seems easier now, like he can access the link better because-

_-oh_ -

“-what about proximity?”

Everyone shuts up but he  barely  notices because _that's_ it, that's what they've been missing the whole time. Allison's confused, the rest of them are expectant. “Okay, so literally everything’s been weird about this bond -  _anything_ could be wrong – but what's remained true for a lot of this has been proximity. Peter and I had to meet to in-person, Peter got Pulled here, I had to physically see a photo of Argent to be Marked. But even with all this - we're not complete because _Peter_ isn't actually Marked by both of us. So what if the thing that's stopping his second Marking is proximity? _"_  

He's sure this is it, it _has_ to be. Because a feeling is a feeling but his reaction to the guy face-to-face would be cold hard proof. And he was the only soulmate awake to do it. 

 

“Instinct’s telling me we should be in the same place. What if moving Peter is enough for the Mark to burn and for our bond to be actualized? What if that's what it'll take for the healing to kick in?” 

There’s a minute where every single health professional in the room looks thoughtful. His specialist team pensive but excited, Deaton impassive but not disagreeing. In the end, it’s not up to Stiles - it’s up to the Hales.

And the Hales say ‘go’.

-/-

It’s a new configuration in the waiting room he’s left everyone in – Dad, Talia, Andrew, and Allison doing their level best not to look worried as he’s drawn away into Christopher’s room. There are other Argents on the way, it seems like – two of Christopher’s cousins from Minnesota and Allison’s godmother who lives clear across the country in New York.

Peter is going to arrive any minute.

They’re prepared for most eventualities, he knows. Pain, shock, internal bleeding – Dr. Smoot is up ahead in Christopher’s room with a task force of physican assistants, nurses. His helping Guide stands outside Argent’s hospital room with him, waiting for the go ahead. Guide Hernandez and Dr. Abdour are downstairs to receive Peter. The fire inside him that is Peter is burning steadily brighter, and he knows without a doubt that he was right.

There’s a lot of legalese that goes into allowing someone to walk you into someone else’s mind. He has a more-than-basic working knowledge of the practice because of Lydia (and Jackson, who's often been the one being walked) but he’s not an expert. This will work though. His feelings haven’t let him down yet.

 _Every eventuality_ , he thinks. 

When he looks up, the capable looking Guide tilts his head.

“Your second – he’s close?”

Stiles nods, gets a reassuring smile in response, and stands back when the Guide finally opens the door.

His first real-life look at his second soulmate is so devastating that Stiles stumbles on the threshold.

In the hospital bed, he’s small and bruised and swathed in blue. His mouth is slack but there’s a furrow in his brows. They must have shaved the left side of his head to get to the bleeding, and the pale white of his skull is a stark and terrible contrast to the rest of his tanned skin. There’s bruising that Stiles can see even from here, the skin below those closed eyes an ugly dark blue without tell-tale swelling. There’s a breathing tube and tape across the bridge of a broken nose and the rasp of breathing over the low hum of the machinery working to keep life in that body and-

-he has to stop. Take a breath. Lean against the door and right himself. No one says a thing while he gets it together, and once he does he goes straight to the chair tucked right up against the bed. He doesn’t know Christopher Argent, no, but he’s going to hold his hand and Guide him out of this. Both flames flare a little inside of him. On everything he is, he swears to himself - no one’s dying tonight.

“Peter’s very close.” He can't peel his eyes away from the man in front of him, so he senses more than sees Guide Elliot take up a position on the other side of the bed. “What do you need me to do?

“Close your eyes, center yourself, and try and relax. Good. Breathe evenly, Stiles, that’s really good. Can you picture your bond with Chris? Now, I need you to to relax even more. You’re going to reach for the state you’re in when you meditate before big planned magic expenditures. Let your Spark slide to the background and focus on the bond.”

It takes him less than a minute to fall into the zone, the hum of the machine and his soulmate’s labored breathing eventually fading to the background as the bond overwhelmed every other sense. Where Peter is the green of growing things, Chris feels like the endless depths of a sea. It’s easy – because he’s touching him? because they’re in the same room? – and all he has to do is open himself up wider than he’s ever been before for Guide Elliot to latch on to him.

“Good. Can you-”

There’s a jarring sensation in his chest, like something snapping violently into place - _Peter, Peter's here_ - and he breathes a sigh of relief as he slips down into the ocean below him.


	9. flowing west

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His hands curl into fists, relax, curl again and stay that way in his pockets.
> 
> “I’ll be straight with you - we have another soulmate, a werewolf, and he needs you too. Honestly, I need you because no way does _any single person_ handle Peter Hale on their own. He’s probably the reason we’re in a triad - no, seriously, you absolutely cannot leave me alone to deal with him.”

This is Some Place Else.

What ought to be familiar _is_ \- but only just. Similar to some of the most beautiful parks he’s been to - wild, abundant, alive with green and growing things – but nature betrays itself. The last path he'd wandered down was lined with both _Salix lasiolepis_ and _Pinust strobes L._  The small garden holds flowers that bloom and wither in different seasons, and the sun hasn’t moved though he’s certain he’s been here for half a day. This place is not a place, then, but a combination of many places. He’s the last wolf standing somewhere that is both here and not here. Existing outside of time. Some place else, then.

It’s beautiful here. There’s a cool breeze and the warmth of the sun against the flesh of his palms. He cannot help but look at the lake, the way it seems clear and opaque all at once. It’s rather peaceful too. It’s that last bit that prompts Peter into deciding that this is Some Place Else and shakes him into fully believing something is up. He has felt happy, yes, and content, yes, and even peaceful but he’s never felt all of those at once and never felt all of those alone.

He opens his eyes and sits up on the deck, still calm but critical, just as a voice that feels a little bit like _Pack_ calls his name.

_Peter?_

It’s a pull in his gut, that voice, and it echoes across the lake in a way that confirms that this isn’t a physical location. He’s in his head, then, most likely. And based on the way his heart is beating double-time, he should know the voice speaking to him but he doesn’t…yet. Easily solvable, of course - he could just ask. His name echoes a second time across the water on a stronger breeze, more insistently, a trace of panic in the voice.

“Who?” 

 _Peter._  

“Yes,” he can’t help feeling amused, “I know who _I_ am but who are you?”

The voice stops suddenly. The lake in front of him slides out of focus. There’s a fuzz over everything, a blanket over sound. Interesting. Is he sliding towards consciousness or is something about their manner of communication growing fuzzy?

More information to sort through, even though his memory is clearly not altogether present and his mind isn’t the most reliable source of information. Still, he’s thinking back to college, back to elementary, back to the last time he took any sort of class on consciousness and magic-

_…your Soulmate._

He blinks.

That's...almost as outside the realm of possibility as this place. 

Except.

Speaking mind-to-mind is much…more than speaking conventionally. When the voice says “Soulmate”, it imparts a sense of ‘surprise’ and ‘trepidation’ and ‘caution’ that catch Peter off-balance. Whatever he is to the voice, “Soulmate” doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing. He takes note and files it away for later.

Clearly, he’s also most _certainly_ suffering some sort of memory loss because there’s no way in hell that he would forget that he has a mate. But without all his ducks in a row and an arguably incomplete sense of self and the fact that this place is the metaphysical, even if he looked for a Mark on his body, no guarantee he’d find one. He has no idea who the young man speaking to him is. The last most important bit is that every instinct in him says the smooth isn’t lying.

“You sound young.”

_Apparently, I’m practically half your age._

“Well,” he muses, “I never did get around to robbing a cradle.”

 _Wow, you can’t_ not _be creepy even at a time like this?_

“Creepy?”

_We’re going to pretend you’re not inappropriately delighted that I’m so much younger?_

“Mind your manners around your elders.” Oh, this one’s a live-wire. Peter’s _definitely_ amused. “If you’re in my head-”

A few things snap into place soon after the thought. The Hale family myth that he’s heard all his life, for one, which is true apparently.

_I’m still waiting for someone to explain to us how I got saddled with you. And, just so you know, we met at a grocery store in our hometown - honestly, you didn’t seem all that impressed._

That...actually sounds about right. He isn’t impressed by much, so he hopes his soulmate hadn’t been offended. More importantly-

“-Beacon Hills?” A soulmate _from his hometown_ all this time? “You. You haven’t-”

There’s a snapping sensation like a rubber band splitting - pain that seems to come from everywhere at once, like the air’s vibrating too hard for him to remain in his skin, like there’s an unrelenting squeal just out of the hearing range of human hearing. and he’s squeezing his eyes shut to ignore it. His hairs stands on edge, his chest suffers from a low-grade ache, and then there’s a sharp painful blaze across the inside of his right arm. When he looks down, his wrists are tingling, and he’s apprehensive when a familiar feeling that he hasn’t called forth takes over-

\-- _awake, alert - that’s how he’s going to survive this thing, almost no warning between unconsciousness, now_ _cement beneath his cheek, his fingers tipped into claws and digging deep into his own abdominals--_

-before his back is arching in a parody of the change, shoulders back and drawn together for a moment he can’t quantify in seconds. With the pain comes a tugging sensation in his chest, something that wants to draw him off the dock and into the water if possible. For a full minute, he's torn between an interrupted transformation and an uncomfortable suction in his chest that is as good as screaming 'go'. Minutes pass. Or hours. Peter can't decide which. What matters is that while he writhes against the wood, a detached part of him is now utterly convinced that he had indeed been speaking to his soulmate. When his skin stops humming, his body relax.

He waits a beat-

-but nothing. A perfect silence matches the perfect imprint of the violent looking sun of this new Mark.

That certainly answers that.

///

For what might be a century, Stiles sits.

Christopher Argent’s mind is kind of like a slap in the face - it's a bracing winter landscape of an unfrozen lake and snowcapped mountains far enough to look like a trek straight of the world of the Lord of the Rings. The sun overhead is distant, clear but remote in the way of suns in the middle of the wilderness. The cold is really crisp, clean, energizing – he can see his breath in this place – and the brightness…everything is pretty much a mirror for the sun. Stiles takes a long time to take everything in. He’s not super philosophical but he's gotta admit that if the mind is an entire world and this is the region he landed in first – happy coincidence? Indication of how far gone Christopher Argent might be? Or a reflection of who Stiles is to him?

He's gonna give himself a headache thinking like this. 

Maybe’s it’s all three. Maybe it has nothing to do with Stiles and everything to do with the state that Christopher is in. Maybe he’s overthinking it - as he does all the time, honestly - and this is all he’s got to occupy himself as he tries to recall everything he’s read about Guided sessions for the intended purpose of drawing coma victims out of the danger zone. He’s nothing to this guy, other than Soulmate. Even if it’s nothing, it’s enough. It’s _something_ and that’s really okay – he’s going to use the little he’s got to get Christopher Argent – _both of them_ – back.

“Guide Elliot?” Stiles asks the place, at one point, but he already knows something went wrong when he sunk into this state. The jarring sensation that he knows bone-deep was Peter Hale getting close might have also shaken his assigned Guide loose.

And he’s alone, but not really. How can he be, when he’s inside someone else?

So does time run differently here? It's gotta run differently here. He’s on his own, yeah, but he’s never been good at doing a single thing at a time and he won’t let himself think about the fact that he has _no idea what the fuck he’s doing_ so his sitting turns into a really focused silent meditation, examining the bonds from all angles.

His ties to Christopher are much _much_ thinner, insubstantial almost, reminding him of spiderwebs – fine threads, which is par for the course, he guesses, two-ish hours out from being Marked. His thing with Peter already looks a little thicker than it did ten? fifteen? hours ago when he’d accidentally connected to him in the precinct. The ties (vines? Now a rich brown like living earth now, no longer the green of a budding plant) are thicker, and there are more of them. A good sign, or it would be if the soul it connected to him didn’t still remind him of a guttering candle wick.

They’re both still flickering.

Not. Good.

///

Peter does nothing because nothing can be done, at the moment- 

_\--out again, there’s no sort of warning which complicates the matter of staying alive in the face of whatever has felled him-_

-and because he’s not particularly moved to leave the deck of this place (my, but his imagination has created a very pretty place) because what he _can_ do is think-

-piece together the puzzle. And remember. The remembering bit takes so long. Or maybe it doesn’t. Impressions of blood and pain and magic all twisted up. It takes him…it takes him a long time, he knows, to just remember and it all comes backwards. He’s in a place of his own making while his mind and memory apparently-

\-- _almost no warning between unconsciousness_ , _which doesn’t matter because he can’t think about anything other than pain_ -

-mend.

Mend.

Everything is all out of order.

Amber. Eyes a little too bright to be normal, in a pale face. And a scent that confounded _and_ intrigued – burnt cinnamon, incense cedar, and…limes. Odd. If he closes his eyes, he can trace that scent _inside_ himself. In him but not of him. A Spark, yes. A Spark named-

\-- _are you okay? I am so sorry! I’m so out of it, God, are you--_

-Stiles Stilinski.

He has to pause, to process how amazed he feels all over again, that he has a Soulmate. He’s surprised, yes, that he _exists_. And that he’s apparently existed for twenty-two entire years in Beacon Hills without ever once running into him.

Instead Stiles had run over his foot in the middle of the grocery store, looked into his face to apologize, and put his wolf on edge. He’d followed him out, curious, wondering what was setting off internal alarm bells – only to end up inside the barrier with a Spark (his Spark) on the verge of losing himself to his power. His favorite jacket, scorched. And an unexpected Soulmate. Providence…maybe, if one believes in that sort of thing-

\-- _just, no, nope, don’t say a word, just shut up and back up while I try_ \--

-and he is, in a way. He can’t help but believe now that he’s looking at The Mark that’s magically reappeared. He thinks of the voice, those amber eyes, sarcastic and wary. Stiles Stilinski, Spark, son of the Sheriff. He’s a sun on the inside of Peter’s left forearm - a thick, red, raised circle the circumference of a perfect circle, ringed by numerous tiny triangles, which are in turn ringed by asymmetrical lines for flames. If Marks are representative of who people are at their very center, then his Soulmate is bright. Blazing, even. Jagged edges and all.

\-- _why are you here, Hale? You’re free to go at any time--_

Despite such passionate youthful announcements, Peter would not have left his other half for anything other than the most grave of Pack business. His knuckles dragging across the boy’s face, his scent muted, tired…vulnerable. Him awake had lit every one of his protective instincts on fire. No...he would not have left Stiles Stilinski if it hadn't been important. 

He hits a wall. Nothing comes, no flash of memory, no impression. Without his permission, his mind turns back to Stiles. He’s strong. Fire in his hands, his Soulmate, fire in his eyes. He’s lying if he says he has never imagined his Soulmate, of course - but his dreams had stopped right around his twenty-fifth birthday, when he’d become Left Hand in truth and he’d found himself drawn into the politics of helping run a pack that sprawled across more land than the Eastern seaboard put together. So

_\--phone at the diner--_

-what diner?

_\--the long drive up--_

-hands on the wheel of his own car but to where, what drive had he been- 

\-- _blood in his breathing mask_ \--

Seattle.

_Two._

Right.

He has _two_ soulmates.

So, why can he only feel _one_ of them?

///

He’d thought all they needed was to get Peter to the hospital. If they’re both still in the danger zone, there’s something else that he’s missing.

 _Okay._ The bond’s giving him diddly – he’s frozen with indecision for a second because everything feels like he’s deciding between life and death – so he does the first thing that comes to mind. Movement is the better part of valor here, right? And he’s gotta move or nothing will happen. Except that the minute he hauls himself gingerly to his feet, the world slides out of focus and sound…

…yeah, he has no words for this, really, other than _clarifies._

He freezes with his hands halfway to his pockets. It’s like only a few senses can run at one time. Or like moving shook out ‘sight’ and ‘touch’ but dragged ‘sound’ into high def. Or like fifteen different Instagram filters on top of each other so that he can’t make out the mountain that was just off in the distance, only an indistinct triangle that retains the dark of trees and the white of snow at the top. And, now, he can hear what had been missing from this place all along – the sound of waves lapping against the shore.

Holy shit.

“Christopher?”

///

Why is it that he can only feel Stiles Stilinski? What happened to him at the diner, and what's locked him into this mental landscape?

His healing must not be working. Head trauma for were isn't unusual - head trauma without a physical or immediately magical source resulting in whatever has happened to him certainly is.In the literal sense, a mind palace of his own making that looks like the unlikely combination of every park he’s ever enjoyed. Had he not been so terribly disoriented when Stiles had dropped into his head, he might have even gotten an answer.

So, he's left to his own investigative devices.

A curse? A hex? Possibly. What's powerful enough to stop something as elemental as were-transformation short of wolf’s bane? Yet, even as he considers both options, he thinks about his nose pressed to the grit of the alley's uneven path. Of his blood pouring out over his claws and pooling in his hand. Whatever has brought him here hadn’t _stopped_ a transformation. It had kickstarted it - then held him suspended and writhing on the ground, the back of his head aching like he’d taken a direct hit from unforeseen foe. 

Can’t be magic without.

Magic within, then.

What he remembers as he stares up at a sky that exists only here is being frozen in the change, the distinct _lack_ of magic-scent in the air, and his own abject confusion when faced with the horror of his body doing things beyond his control. If Stiles is well enough to banter with him here, in his head, then Stiles is most likely awake. 

So - something is keeping him here. And…or? Or stopping him from healing.

He thinks of his mother, who’d smoothed the hair back from his face when he was young, to tell him the story of some long ago Hale Seer. He thinks of story as well as Tali – his own great grandmother who’s story was written down. He thinks of Andrew’s grandparents who felt his Soulmate’s pain two states away and followed it to Oregon. And the more he thinks, the more he suspects that the Pull brought him to…Seattle, if that’s still where he is.

If Stiles is the only one well enough to banter with him, then their third isn’t.

He's forced to also consider that the Pull is still present, in this metaphysical space, like a lead tied around his hard and tugging  _away_. Ahead and straight  _down_ into the lake, in fact. What he can't figure out quite yet is whether this is an impossibility - he's well-read, certainly, but no amount of reading would have ever prepared for him for being part of a triad  _and_ he's never been much for paying attention to the different schools of thought to mate science and/or bond magic theory. 

But the fact that he _feels_ a physical pull? When, for all intents and purposes, this is his subconcscious ? Something to ponder later. 

In any case, if the pull is into the lake, then into the lake he must go. There's no telling how much time Stiles has, or what jarred their connection, or whether he'll return if something has happened to bring them to this juncture. No, Peter's never been one to waste time when circumstances present him few options. So, he sits up, experimentally, lets his toes hit the water-

-only for a shock to run through him.

Every single nerve in his body is now singing a _cantata_ , something like the erie wondrous awakening of _Toward the Unknown Region-_  

///

Christopher’s mind remains blurry like he’s wearing bad glasses but the waves hush, get quiet, quiet like they’re listening for Stiles’ voice. The sense that there is someone listening is so strong that he keeps peering around like he’ll – dunno- see the guy in question. But it’s far too disconcerting to look at the world in such a way so he closes his eyes. He just starts talking. He’s always had words. Maybe they’ll help this time too.

“Christopher? Should I call you Chris? God, that feels weird but the informal thing for a guy almost as old as my Dad is a little too much.” He laughs a little because he hadn’t even thought about the fact Argent is actually _older_ than Peter. “Hi. Christopher. Argent. Whatever, you know who you are – as Peter so eloquently told me a few hours ago. Or at least, I hope you do. Shit, what if you don’t?" 

Before he can follow that thread into detached panic, he sucks in a breath and redirects himself.

“Let’s go with yes. So, hi. I’m breaking all sorts of rules, I’m sure, about how to talk to you mind-to-mind but I’m flying blind. So. I’m Stiles Stilinski and I’m one of your Soulmates.” He sucks in a breath and doesn’t dare move a muscle besides his mouth. “I’m from California – Beacon Hills, actually, can you believe it? Not too far. Actually, I don’t recall how long the flight was because we were in such a rush to get here.”

The waves seem slower, quieter, so he keeps going.

“I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what I’m doing but I hope you’re here, with me, that you can hear me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t an emergency. You need to wake up. You need to come back.”

“You’re lucky, you know. I don’t know anything about you other than the fact that – and wow this feels weird to say – but you raised a really good kid. I think she’s older than me, possibly, but Allison is really cool. Level-headed even though everything’s going to pieces around her. And if you managed Allison, then you’ve _got_ to have that same kind of practicality too.”

His hands curl into fists, relax, curl again and stay that way in his pockets.

“I’ll be straight with you - we have another soulmate, a werewolf, and he needs you too. Honestly, I need you because no way does _any single person_ handle Peter Hale on their own. He’s probably the reason we’re in a triad - no, seriously, you absolutely cannot leave me alone to deal with him.”

This time, when he stops, the lapping of the waves barely make a _shh shh_ that he can pick out.

“I know you don’t’ know me and I don’t know you but I need you. I came all the way into your head to pull you out because I need you. You know what I need? I need you alive. Just…alive. I’ll settle for that. Allison, more than anyone else outside this place, needs you. So, you can’t leave just yet.”

He hunches down, right where he is with his eyes closed, and lets his hand feel forward to dip into the wet sand. “Christopher. It's not your time. Come back to Allison-” _to us_ “-because you've still got things left to do here. Don't go any farther. Just...come back.”

“You’re needed.” _Do you hear me?_ “You’re not done here.”

When Stiles runs out of words (and he does, eventually), he keeps his eyes shut and sits right where he is.It takes him a long time to realize that he’s not really supporting his own weight anymore. When he opens his eyes, he realizes that the landscape has changed or his location in it has shifted.

The mountains are still off in the distance (and still blurry) but he’s in the lake itself, chest high. No wonder he can’t hear the lapping on the shore. He’s…not on the shore. The landscape shifting around him without his knowledge would be odd if he wasn’t aware this is really Christopher Argent’s mind. As it is, he’s actually just distantly wondering why the water doesn’t feel like anything and whether it would be smart to open himself up while here and try and tap into the bond. He’s downright scared of doing the wrong thing but-

-he goes for it. He closes his eyes again, breathes in deep once, twice, and tentatively turns inward. It’s like looking at 3D glow-in-the-dark images in the complete black of night. Everything lit up like the individual smallest unit of whatever substance makes up the bond glows on its own. There’s the green of living things for Peter and the misty gray of a winter lake (how apropos) for Christopher and when he “looks” closer – there’s a space that feels empty between the two. So if theory’s applicable here, he and Christopher have a two-way street between them. He and Peter have a two-way street between them. Christopher has a one-way street to Peter and something’s stopped up on Peter’s end. And if theory’s applicable here then they just need something to spark the-

Huh.

Spark.

_What if I just…force the issue?_

It’s unheard of. It’s insane – you can’t _force_ a bond, he doesn’t even know what kind of magic could. The closest people get is faking Marks and using love charms – he’s thinking of that giant scandal out of Tallahassee three years ago – but you can’t fake the _actual physiological_ bonds. But why else would he be the only one conscious if it wasn’t’ for this? Why can’t he just take what he knows about patching wards to building the space between the other two? All he needs is the intent, right? So if he just takes his intent – everything in him wanting them to live, everything in him trying to get them back to consciousness – and focuses that into the small emptiness he can feel where the third bond should be then-

-he feels more than hears a hum. It’s not a bad hum – it’s a “????”, really – and he knows for certain it’s Christopher. Good. Something’s happening then. He refocuses on that emptiness and pretends this is just a “patch” he’s got to build. It takes the same level of dedication, the same kind of quick analysis – he can’t force the bond, of course not – but he can look at the space in between the places in him that feel like his two Mates and that he’s still inside someone else’s minds. So he's gonna go with it, yeah, he's just disengage from the internal view of his soul and theirs and he's gonna open his eyes and-

-he's under water. Completely. He almost gives in to panic,  _almost_ , but his Mage training kicks in.  _Calm down,_ he tries to think, tries to remind him that this is Christopher Argent's consciousness and that calm is key and that this isn't real in the same way as the physical world but his lungs are burning like he needs air and-

///

Eventually, Peter masters control of his body quickly, but still feels a faint trembling in the muscles of his thighs, his arms, his very fingers, and the fine hair on the tops of his arms.

Well. 

He sucks in a breath, pushes himself up into sitting position and bends again to look at the lake. If the Pull was a "pull" before, it's an inexorable draw now.

Everything in him is fighting against a primal onslaught of _followfollowfollow_ and  _matematemate_ that's howling for him to abandon caution and dive in. 

Should he submerge himself completely?

A moot question, really.

More importantly, what happens when he does?

Also possibly a moot question, when for all intents and purposes, it appears he has no choice. 

He blinks - once, twice, then sighs before pushing himself off the dock and into the lake-

///

He can't panic, he _can't_ , he just has to figure out what-

-but it's not his imagination. The water is brightening, no longer a murky blue but an ethereal looking silver and he can feel dark spots creeping into his vision but he _can't_ breathe in because this isn't his head and Stiles can't bend the rules here so he does the only thing he can think of with everything fading fast-

-he doesn't bother visualizing his bonds, he just blows both pathways wide the fuck open-

///

 

-it feels like the Change times a thousand. Like he's touched a power line, has gone down with the charge, and can only wait until every ounce of electric energy bounces around his cells to eventually peter out when it's good and ready. In a distant part of his brain, Peter's vaguely surprised that instead of tumbling into the water, his body curves backward and slams him down again unto the deck. For a long time, all he has is the sky above him and the blood breaking like a damn in his veins. If asked, he'll never be able to guess at how much time it takes for the crescendo to build and build and _build_ -

///

-Stiles can't breathe, he can't stand it-

///

-it seems impossible that even a werewolf could survive this kind of sustained shock, he hasn't the faintest idea whether he can, everything's slipping away from him-

///

...

 

...

 

...

He’s dying.

He’s-

_**Don’t.** _

He’s-

-he is.

He knows he’s dying.

Everything is too sharp, something indescribable and unrealistic about the colors – blues are clear skies, greens are moss, light is lighter than he’s ever seen it. He’s so aware that this is like movies of his best memories playing on a flatscreen. Everything in high definition but more.

_**Don’t go.** _

He’s trying, honestly, but he’s not entirely sure what’s going on.

_**Can you hear me, Chris?** _

Right now, he’s in and out of a memory of sailing with his family – Katie chattering away next to him on deck. If he closes his eyes and ignores the weird lighting, he can focus on the way his lids light up the right shade of red, how warm the skin inside his wrists feel, ( _he remembers the sandwiches Maman made, he’d asked an Aunt for the recipe when Alli was little_ ) Dad carding a hand distractedly through his hair.

Now, he’s thirty-five and he’s pulling flowers out of an extravagant bouquet he’d ordered online, a riot of color, the exact kind she would have loved and ( _now they’re his favorites too and-_ ) getting Allison to help him lay them out in front of the headstone. The grass, the gray of the stone, the flowers – everything’s bright and he has has a feeling this, this particular remembrance is bringing him closer to an end but-

Then he’s nineteen again, shooting the shit with Ania and Jacques. Ania’s hair is long, honey blonde which really works against her skin ( _and he’s so glad, so fucking glad that he’d met her and that she’d stuck with him all these years and that she loves Alli enough to take care of her if he can’t hold on_ )- and Jaq thinks they should hurry up and get married if Ania’s going to let him “play in her hair” like that. Which is dumb because he’s officially got best friends rights – he’s helped her take down microbraids, she’ll tell him off if she doesn’t want him stroking her twists – and he’s ignoring Jacques for the most part.

_**You can’t leave.** _

He’s not going anywhere. He’s right here. His second family by his side, and nothing ahead but the future-

_-dimming-_

-the light is dimming, the brightness going out of the memory like those lights that you turn down instead of off and _this is it, this is death, I can’t hold on_ but-

-the voice he’s been hearing all this time, the voice that’s been fluttering like an overlay on his memory run is now heavy with purpose. He’s still dying, maybe, because now there’s no reel of remembrance, just an indistinct blue that reminds him of-

-the lake, water, _the lake is my favorite place_ where he grew up.

_**You can’t leave us yet.** _

The voice is tentative, like it doesn’t believe itself, maybe doesn’t believe he believes it either. But it’s also cool sun against his wet skin, and now it’s all that’s left without his memories. His attention catches on the words. Us?

_**Allison.** _

Yes. He can’t leave her. He _doesn’t know how_ to leave her.

_**You should come back.** _

But he doesn’t-

_**Come back.** _

But he still doesn’t know how to come back. He’s dying, isn’t he? And lost…isn’t he?

_**Please.** _

_****Let me.** ** _

The voice is no longer begging him. The voice is no longer a whisper. It is not a flutter of wings, barely there, or a shaky call - it is a hard line in his head. It's a gale.

It’s...the sun.

_**Just let me.** _

Okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm surprised it's already been a year! I promise I'm chugging along. I'm not so good at chopping up scenes for dramatic breaks but I needed this to be choppy because-  
> -reasons.
> 
> Bonus - I listened to River Tiber/Daniel Caesar's song 'West' to title and finish this chapter.


	10. apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is many things - blind and stupid aren’t some of them.

Clinics are not places that Peter Hale has had ample opportunity to scent.

His rise into consciousness is shaky - yet, even if he hadn’t felt the extreme discomfort of healing abdominal wounds, he would certainly have known where he was.

Tali, Andrew - steady heartbeats he’d know anywhere, a faint tinge of exhaustion in the air. The notable lack of heartbeats of his parents, his nieces, his nephew - _no Packmate to protect them here_ , his instincts mutter. Only the faintest scent of extreme anxiety lingers - wherever he is, they are modern enough to have ventilation systems that do more than recycle old air. More importantly, his aching head should be enough to distract from the rest of his body, but his right side is _aflame_ in the same way that his right shoulder was a few days ago and there are two new rooms in his head.

Stiles Stilinski.

And their third.

It’s unsettling. It’s unfamiliar. His head is no longer just his own.

Everything is heightened, warped - he’s not even sure he’s making sense to himself. What drives him now - beyond the pain of healing, the ache in his bones, the ingrained need for family - is the instinct that says he’s no longer alone. He doesn’t truly need training to understand the mating bonds (though he may want to, just for the experience). This lucid-yet-not state makes it easy for him to simply float away. Float inwards. Investigate his....head, he supposes. And what he finds is not just a bond but a _home_. Not two rooms but multiple. They...they are a home in his head, an estate, something massive - bigger than the main Hale house, heavy oak doors thrown open in welcome. A part of him wants to bound into the place but-

-there’s time.

They’re alive. He’s here.

And there is so much he can _feel_ coming from his soulmates that he doesn’t feel ready to walk into any of them. _Which,_ he muses as he releases the imagery and floats to normal consciousness, _is a normal feeling._ What he does know instinctively is that they are both in pain and unconscious, but relatively close by. If he concentrates, he can hear their heartbeats elsewhere in the building.  

It eases something in him, despite the throbbing pain of his body and the lack of insight into the situation, and pulls him back to sleep.

-/-

The next time he wakes, he lies still only for a moment - reaching for the edges of a fading dream, of being in far over his head in a body of water, of a voice that he might know. It dissipates before he can pull anything useful from it.

He dips into his consciousness just to check on the state of the bond - the home in his head is bigger - then opens his eyes to an unfamiliar clinic ceiling. When he turns his head, it’s just his sister in the room, her hands wrapped around one of his and her eyes closed in sleep.

This is the other reason he doesn’t like Clinics.

Only family would note the strain and the beginnings of fatigue in the lines around her mouth, even in sleep, and he and she have been family for as long as either of them are capable of remembering. He’s not exactly _filial_ , per se, but he does his best not to worry his family - which is why he hasn’t seen her this worn in years. Drew out of the room could mean anything from “something else has happened that deserves Alpha attention” to “bathroom break”.

“Tali.”

She goes from asleep to alert. No transition in between. Her whole body jerks, her head snapping off the bed, and her eyes get big as she stares at him - right before her face crumples.

He is shocked, to say the least. Things must have been quite touch-and-go.

Oh, Tali...oh, his big sister.

“Come on.” He winces - his voice sounds like he’s inhaled ash - but at least manages a smile when she looks up. “Climb up.”

They are no longer children, but she toes off her flats, runs her free hand down what he knows for a fact are her favorite pair of stay-at-home jeans, and climbs over the railing before curling into his left side. He’s still exhausted and his right side is still-

- _oh._ He lets out a strained sound at the sensation of his pain becoming hers, but soon all he can feel is the rush of endorphins that accompany temporary alpha healing. He gets his left arm curled around her shoulder and sweeps a sluggish hand over her sweater.

It’s not until he scents salt on the air that he _truly_ realizes how badly shaken she is. How much he must have scared her, his parents, and the rest of his family. He is immensely sorry, for something he still doesn’t quite know or understand. He wishes he knew just what on earth has happened but now is for comfort.

Before long, she reigns it in but he doesn’t stop rubbing her back. The motion is soothing, as it always has been, and he’s lulled into a warm and fuzzy state. Just before he drops off entirely, he buries his nose in her hair and whispers “I’m alright”. He will be.

-/-

When he next opens his eyes, she’s curled up on the same chair, curled up like she used to when they were kids, back before she turned ten, him forever pouncing on her sleeping cub form on whatever couch she’d decided made a good napping spot for the day. She looks over, grins to see him awake.

“Back in the land of the living?”

“Sleeping in chairs, again?”

“Where else? I have to watch my kid brother so he doesn’t get into trouble again. Strong enough for a call?”

He’s well enough to offer her the driest look imaginable. All she does is laugh and take his hand.

Talia calls their parents and puts them on speaker phone - his mother is so relieved that she can’t help but scold while his father is awfully silent. Derek’s voice is tremulous, Cora’s high and failing. He’s scared everyone, it seems, and he’s going to have do a terrible amount of reassuring when he returns to Beacon Hills. By the time does all the verbal soothing he can do by phone, he’s exhausted again.

“How are you feeling? Do you want the nurse?”

“I’m fine.” He’d prefer to wait for any medical aid, as it is, as he’s certain aid would mean sleep. He’s only just risen to consciousness as it is. “What happened?”

“You tell me,” she shoots back.

A tug that he can’t describe, something in his soul that insisted he up and go. Even watching Stiles Stilinski’s troubled sleep in the hospital hadn’t been enough to stop him. There had been a part of him that had worried at leaving one clearly hurt mate behind to find another, but in the end, he’s always been a creature of instinct. His nature had given him an ultimatum, and he’d trusted that Stiles would be smart enough to know that he hadn’t left on a whim.

“The Pull, of course.”

“Peter.” There’s the barest hint of Alpha in her voice and he sighs soundlessly.

“The Pull,” he repeats, “it brought me to Seattle. Before I could set up a face-to-face to greet the Akionas and get permission for an extended stay in town while I looked, something went wrong. I still don’t know. It’s all somewhat muddled but I do remember being forced into transition - then frozen there.”

“How do you feel?”

He thinks carefully about attempting a shrug then decides against it. He considers offering up a description - ‘settled’, perhaps, or ‘tired’, either would do but none would fully capture the steady hum of _packmatepackmate_ in the background or the fragility settled in his bones. He smiles vaguely.

“Mated.”

She’s unimpressed. “How do you _feel_?”

There are new rooms in his head and new pack senses in his heart. He’s going to be perfectly fine.

“ _Very_ mated,” he says dryly. “Would you care to explain what happened?”

“I don’t think anyone knows any more than you do, since all three of you haven’t managed to be conscious at the same time.” There’s a wealth of _not quite lying_ in her turn-of-phrase, in the minuscule hesitation, that he cannot parse. “But I’m hoping when you’re all awake, we can figure out what happened.”

“All I can offer is that I was already in Seattle. I called Drew the night before and texted Stiles that morning. It felt wrong, like stasis. Not quite like the transformation tainted by wolfsbane or some ritual but it didn’t have the feel of magic.” A puzzle, certainly, to set aside for later. “How are they?”

Another brief hesitation.

“Talia.”

“On the mend.” She squeezes his hand. He’s the Left Hand. It’s his job to ascertain threats, to parse words, to gauge the weight of news. She speaks as if she’s walking on thin glass, and he does not appreciate it. Something must color his face because she squeezes his hand. “Sorry. Big sister instincts. As far as we know, your third was attacked at a grocery store three mornings ago. He was beaten badly enough to sustain internal bleeding in a couple of different places - his brain and his lungs. We don’t have an approximate time for when you went down but it looks like it was within an hour of whatever happened at the grocery store. Stiles was the only one in the triad to stay awake, and Lydia Martin had a Telling hours later - and that’s when we all realized something was very wrong.”

“We left Mom and Dad with the kids, came with Stiles and the Sheriff. Thankfully, when we landed, they’d called the House to tell us where you were and Drew and I came here. Stiles and his father went to the earnest precinct to see if they could use what they knew from the Telling to find mugging victims. Long story short, Stiles saw your third’s photo, got Marked, and we all rushed here as soon as we could.”

She's clearly cutting out most of the parts fraught with desperation, if the spike in her heartbeat is anything to go by. He lets that go in favor of his attention catching on the part that worries him.

“You said we weren’t all conscious?”

“Stiles tried to go into your third’s consciousness with a Guide. The Guide got booted from his consciousness but Stiles didn’t - and we had no way of know what was going on. According to the rest of Clinic personnel who were present, they were both impenetrable. Nothing in, nothing out. No readings off of either of them. Guides decided to try your consciousness and it was-” there’s a hitch in her breath speaks to fear, “-you neither. For a solid hour, it was like all three of you were locked in stasis.”

That word again: _stasis_.

When she falls silent, he takes his time examining her. Peter is many things - blind and stupid aren’t some of them. There are a couple of things that she’s not telling him, and the first is his other soulmate’s name. There's an inkling of foreboding tingling in the back of his head, at the tips of his fingers.

“Who is he?”

“His name is Christopher Argent.”

-/-

Peter has nearly a full day to sit with the knowledge that he is mated to the son of one of the most notorious American hate-crime serial killers of the half-century.

To be fair, he isn’t actually conscious for most of that time. Asleep his dreams are nothing more than scraps of dark water, fog over snow. His every rise to conscious is marked by the instinctive need to check on the other two thirds of his soul - the home in his head seems bigger than before and he traverses hallways that smell of _mine_ and _family_ . He will not walk into the rooms uninvited, for now. It is enough to know that they are there, to _feel_ that _they_ are alive and with him.

Talia tries once to ask him how he feels about it but he turns her focus elsewhere, with very little effort, since he isn’t out of the woods.

Both she and Andrew look worse for wear, certainly. The muted floral scent of exhaustion precedes their entrance into his room. They’ve been taking turns draining his pain, under the watchful eyes of the health professionals of this clinic. He feels physically fragile in a way he hasn’t since he was a child - it’s _astonishing_ how humbling it is to feel so mortal. Shaking limbs, fatigue beyond fatigue so that he’s sleeping more often that he’s awake. Even holding cutlery is almost beyond him. He understands that there’s magic afoot, his healing factor being diverted to his mates while their bonds solidify, but even their team of specialists don’t seem entirely convinced that that’s all it is. Far be it from him to naysay the professionals, who are constantly in and out of the room.

There seems to be a concerted effort to give him as little information as possible about what's happening. And he’s never left alone for long - so when he is, he has time to think.

Everyone above the age of thirty knows the name ‘Gerard Argent’ (née Gerard Wood) - Peter remembers the outrage, the marches on campus his last year, the way hate speech and hate crimes had been dragged into the national conversation. The Argent court case was televised - and the relentless bill of newsreels every night that speculated on how a man from ‘such simple beginnings’ were never ending. Documentaries detailing each of the four mass murders air every now and then on the channels that like to run crime and forensic cases. Yes, Peter remembers much but he can’t recall knowing that there were children.

That there was a son.

He imagines that as the Argents were one of the wealthiest and most conservative families in the Midwest, they’d done all they could to shelter Christopher Argent and his younger sister. He wonders why the man would keep his last name. Especially since there is a daughter.

She comes in by herself to greet him, he thinks - introduce herself, talk.

“You know.” Who she - _her father_ \- is. He nods, and she lets out a heavy breath. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t make an effort to break the silence, just takes the time to study her as she gathers her words. Allison Argent is young - Stiles’ age, he thinks. Large brown eyes, hair almost a rich dark brown, dimples in a pale wide heart-shaped face, brown eyes as guileless as a child. Her scent is a cornucopia of things - if he knew her well enough, he’d be able to sift through it all to get to her father - but she smells of trepidation layered with relief, curiosity.

Hope.

It’s that last bit that he’s intrigued by, that prompts him into speaking.

“Have you spent a lot of your life apologizing for your grandfather’s crimes?”

Her eyes are straight out of a children’s fairy tales, all wide and startled, as if no one’s ever asked her before.

“Some. I had a different last name growing up before I took my born surname back. It’s been a learning experience since then.”

Resignation is a soft smokey scent on the air.

The more she talks, the less sheltered she’s seem. Young, yes, but there’s a thread of steel in her that says she knows who she is despite her origins. Or because of them. Her scent dips and meanders, nothing he can place, but familiar all the same. She has a large sprawling family, nowhere near as big as his Pack but quite big all the same and it seems she and her father have maintained ties with the main family. He’s vaguely surprised that they weren’t simply...cut off. She shares that she’s close with quite a few of her cousins, that they go to family gatherings when they can, that they should have been at one this very weekend. At no point in time does she mention her mother.

Curious, indeed.

She seems reluctant to leave - he imagines that the reality of a father who’s suddenly Mated (for the first time? second time?) has been overwhelming. On top of that same father being at death’s door, of course.

“I should...I should go.”

He blinks, waits to see what she’ll do. She doesn’t move and her scent gives nothing way. It’s as if she’s waiting for-

- _ah._

“You may return, if you wish.”

Why she seems relieved to have his explicit consent to return, he’s interested in finding out - and when she leaves, he finds himself staring thoughtfully after her.

Mere moments later, Andrew is striding into the room with what smells like overburnt coffee and coconut creamer, and a relieved smile on his face. His human brother-in-law’s scenting is more thorough than any Peter has ever been on the receiving end of before. He lets him prop a foot on the edge of the bed but looks at the cup in his hand.

“Really, Andrew?”

“It’s the only thing around while Talia makes an actual food run!”

“I can _smell_ it from here.”

“I’m running on adrenaline and five hours of sleep - a little less judgement, please?” Andrew takes a sip of his truly toxic-smelling concoction, coughs, then gazes thoughtfully at the door. “So...she finally came back to see you.”

“Finally?”

“She’s been mostly by her father’s side, but she’s split time between your bedside and Stiles. You're the first to wake, so I'm not surprised she stopped by.” His brother-in-law yawns, settles into the chair, while Peter mulls that over.

She’d had more than enough to worry about, with her father. That or she was invested in his and Stiles’ health, as they were directly linked to her father’s. Though, from what he’d heard, she and the Stilinski boy had gotten along well enough in the calm before the storm.

Such a curious girl.

"Ah" is all he says in response. Andrew’s lips twitch like he’s stopping himself from responding - Peter cuts his packmate a look that only makes the man grin into his awful coffee - but before they can trade anything else back-and-forth there’s a knock on the door. Sheriff Stilinski pokes his head into the room, looking and smelling exhausted.

“Glad to see you up and about.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Peter says dryly.

“I really hope you’ve had a chance to nap in the ten hours since I’ve seen you, Noah.” Peter isn’t surprised that they’re all on first name basis - family peril tends to tighten those bonds, of course - but he’s still taken aback when the Sheriff takes the other empty seat next to Andrew.

“Stiles woke up briefly about an hour ago, so, no.” Andrew wordlessly hands him the second cup of coffee he’d brought up. “Thanks. They come in here yet?”

“Who?”

“The specialists, who else?” Stilinski takes a sip of the coffee, makes a disgusted face, and drinks on. “There’s an excited looking huddle at the nurses’ station but it’d be vain to think these three are the only fuss around here.”

Peter is entirely sure that they _are_ the only thing of interest in this clinic at the moment. And that’s not the vanity speaking. Still, the pleasant conversation between Drew and the Sheriff translates to a pleasant background buzz that sets his mind wandering.

_The son._

The son of a racist prejudiced were-hating murderer. The son of a conservative Midwestern heiress. One and the same. Now that he thinks about it, despite this being the most public tragedy of his lifetime, the Argent family had to have had enough clout to keep film and documentary-makers off their backs. To keep Christopher Argent and his daughter under the radar.

Yet, even then, the son had kept his last name.

Loyalty to his deceased mother and her living family? Or his deranged deceased father? Peter doesn’t know enough of the son to tell either way - just the son’s hopeful daughter.

His last thought before he sinks down into sleep is less thought and more imagery - snow drifts, a fractured gray sky, and the deep dark of a winter lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter's back from the dead, exhausted - and trying to figure out where his soulmates are and what in God's name is going on.


	11. dug down far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He remembers dying.
> 
> But if he's dead, he shouldn't remember at all.

_where_

**_In a clinic. Seattle. A clinic in the city of Seattle in the state of Washington. United States._ **

_où_

**_Seattle. Do you remember, Chris?_ **

_remember_

**Stiles. He does not-**

_who is Stiles, who is dark_

**_I am._ **

_you-_

**_-person? Yes. Peter-_ **

**Stiles.**

_who is Peter, who is sun_

**_But we can help-_ **

**_..._ **

**-ma. We don’t know if this is something he-**

**_..._ **

******_-won’t! Because we can’t!_ **

**** **_..._ **

**_..._ **

**_..._ **

**_-daughter and best friend because there’s a living will, Peter._ **

****_q-q-q-ui est-ce_

**Left to me, you already know what we’d-**

**_-_ **

**_-consent-_ **

 

**-could survive, perhaps, but only if-**

_who is_

_where_

**_..._ **

**_..._ **

**-his choice.**

**- _his choice_.**

_can’t remember. can't remember at all._

_..._

_whose?_

-/-

It feels like floating. All air, all clouds, no substance.

Nothing that’s real. And nothing to do but sink. Or fall. Both? Not fall. Why can't he remember.  Why is it hard. To _think_. Why can’t he-

-  _la famille -_

-catch the words. He chokes?

chokes…?

Chokes.

On air. 

Pieces, all pieces.

It’s not real, it’s not real, _it’s not real._

-/-

 _didn't_ _ i..._

_...die? _

-/-

-the ache reminds him of the time Katie fell from the tree. Or was it Alli? _So similar_. Dark hair, big eyes.  Bright eyes. 

He struggles - _ma soeur ou ma fille?_ \- but he can’t remember how big he was when he caught her. He can’t find it. And once he's found it, he can’t hold it. He might have caught them both. It would make sense. He’s had to hold them both, safe. He caught her, as she fell, but he fell too. 

He fell too.

It was okay, though. Lessened the impact. It didn’t matter if she was safe. It never mattered as long as they were safe.

_Safe, safe, safe._

He’s... _désordre_ , inside. Il est cassé. Messy, broken, in pieces. Jagged edges, none of them touching, just pieces. Hurt head, hurt heart.

Family first but he's the last remaining child of Gerard and Christine Argent. The last of the Argents. The last of his line.

_Pieces._

He's all in pieces.

-/-

_liar, liar, pants on fire_

_fire, fire, heart's desire_

-/-

Heavy arms. They're concrete. Lead. Or blocks? Wooden blocks. He can’t move at all. A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-

And.

There’s heat, somewhere. Maybe his stomach. Maybe his chest. He’s catching on fire. 

“Dad. Dad?”

-

-

Distant. Sounds like Allison. It’s panicked but he can’t really hear over the sound shaking-

-he won't hear it.

He can’t hear anything.

-/-

He remembers dying.

But if he's dead, he shouldn't  _remember_ at all. 

-/-

There’s an echo in him. He remembers dying, and he remembers snow. The echo is a phone line but he can’t tell how many people are on.

**_Hey_** _,_ says a sleepy someone in the back of his head. **_Hey, you awake?_**

It’s not his voice. It’s bright and rough. And sleepy. One person on the line, besides him.

**Are you alright?**

A new voice. Rough, too, but silvery. Like a breeze in rainy weather, a little. And now that he thinks about, yes. The question is like...like the snap of a rubber band. Two people on the line. The line is his _head._ And his head is part of his body and his body hurts. His back, yes. His head. His chest-

**_Can you try and go back to sleep? We’ll call a nurse._ **

It takes him a really long time to put it together. If there’s a nurse, he’s been-

**Hurt, yes.**

-and they can hear him. It's a phone line. A threeway. He can hear them and they can hear him. But people don't just live in your head. Unless their Guides. But Guides don’t just...live in your head. Or hold their breath in your head like they are scared, as Bright Sleepy seems to be doing. Rough Silver is just silent and waiting-

Why does he know how they feel.

He shouldn’t know how they feel.

Why-

His back hurts.

His _back_ hurts.

His name is Christopher Argent. He is...somewhere. He is...visiting? He is somewhere visiting his daughter. He has voices in his head. Her name is Allison. He can feel that he has eyes and arms and legs, but he can’t move. His head is messy, messy, so he can’t remember right now but his back hurts. He-

 _ **It's okay, it's okay, just relax, we understand.**_ Bright Sleep is trying to make him feel better. B-b-but. 

But.

There’s a wall in his head and words are on the other side. Memories are on the other side. He can’t get through the wall. All he knows is that his back hurts and that’s important because he’s got- _what is that in the mirror? What’s that wet and raw-looking patch between his shoulder blades?_ -marks. Marks and soulmates. 

Soulmate marks.

**_Yeah. We’re your soulmates._ **

It echoes down the phone line like...like a burn. That doesn't make sense. The voices seem to still be there, just quiet. A hush hush. A waiting hush. If he’s in a clinic, then-

**_Allison’s fine. She’s camped out in a waiting room with Ania, I think. Should...should we get someone to send for her? To come to your room? I’m sure she-_ **

No.  She's fine. It's enough. 

He puts the phone receiver back in the cradle.

-/-

The first thing he thinks to himself, when he wakes up for real, is time. 

Time feels different. _He_ feels different.Different like he felt at the funerals. Different like ‘ _and then there was one’_. The skin over his bones is just a……he’s just — his skin is really just skin. Like he can shake it off or peel it back or throw down. He feels-

_“you’re wounded but your words will come back”_

-temporary.

Something awfully important has happened.  Or ‘something awful has happened’.  The way he feels, where he is, both of them are probably right.

He’s not sure he’s ready to open his eyes. Maybe he can lay here a little longer, and try to puzzle out why he’s...he’s…

-awake. _No, no,_ _that's not the right word, the right word is another 'a' word_ -

Aware.

Yeah.

He’s aware of himself. As a person? Even if his body feels odd. Which is strange to know. That he can feel himself thinking but until he thinks about _himself_ as a  _body_ he doesn't remember he has one. 

He doesn’t make any actual decision to open his-

“c _an you try and go back to sleep?”_

-his eyes. 

It’s a clinic. Clearly. The light is harsh and makes him squint. Who designed this place. The lights are right in his line-of-sight. They didn’t care about patient comfort. The room is cold. There’s a brace around his neck and plastic in his nostrils. He reckons he should upgrade from ‘something awful happened’ to ‘something awful happened’ to ‘something life-changing happened’.

His breathing is fast. Distant, too. But when his vision starts blacking out around the edges -  _a neck brace, **why does he have a neck brace**_  - he shoves. He shoves it back. No panic. If he panics, he'll think about how there is plastic in his nose and down his throat and into his lungs. And then he'll lost more than words. So he breathes. Just breathing until his head is empty and he feels nothing. 

Good.

Alright.

He should wiggle. Yeah, he should. Check that everything's still there. That they still work. So he lays there and experimentally twitches. He's shocked and resigned to confirm that he can move. But  _everything_ hurts. The ache between his shoulders is fierce. He hurts - his head, his back, his heart.

Chest, he means.

And that's important, right, because- 

_ an echo in his head like his brain’s a phone line _

-because. He knows it is. He’s been best friends with a witch for years. His chest (no, his  _heart_ ) hurts and he's not an idiot so. There's magic. Somewhere. In all of this. His back hurts.

Exactly where-

_\- bright and sleepy, rough and silvery -_

-the panic tries to rise again. He's shoved it back once. He can do it again. It's fine. Everything is fine. 

Alright?

Everything is just fine.

Okay.

He’s lived all this time with two...sleepy....soulmate marks on his body. And now he's awake. He's losing words and his back is on fire and he’s _in a Clinic_. The last thing he can remember is the grocery store and reaching for his keys. And now he's awake and he can hear an echo.  He's alone in this room but he's not in his head.

He’s going out on a-

_a what?_ _a what? what is the word?_

-it's a guess. He's guessing. He's  _not_ not scared. But being scared hasn't stopped him yet. 

_Hello._

**_...hello._ **

-alright, so there’s that theory over and done with. He's...it really  _is_ a phone line with someone on the other end. Because, even hurt, he knows he doesn’t sound that young or hesitant or...scared. He waits for something more.

And waits.

He’s pretty sure the voice is still there but-

_Are you still there?_

**_Yeah, I...yeah. Last time we did this you kind of...freaked out - which is_ totally _your right because you didn’t know what the fuck was going on and they have you on so many drugs - and then_ I _freaked out so I’m kind of...uh, trying to follow your lead?_**

_...oh._   He doesn't remember. Also, this guy does a lot of talking. Is this normal? Do other...soulmates...talk to each other? He doesn't think so.  _We talked?_

**_We all did, sort of._ **

He doesn’t remember any of it. He doesn’t _not_ believe him. It’s hard to lie when you’ve got an open line straight into someone’s head. And who's all?

_You...want to introduce yourself or should I guess?_

There’s a marked silence and then the voice - _guy_ \- he’s...he’s laughing? Chris doesn’t know how he knows but the guy is full-on laughing. He’s got the sudden imagery of a sun-shower, rain hitting skin while dusk arrives.

**_Sorry._ **

It’s like the impression of the guy's laughter. Their heightened fleeting amusement. All that energy -unfocused. No one has to tell him that the guy is young and _wasteful._ He's spilling emotions all over the place. Sleepiness, exhaustion, relief - he gets the impressions back-to-back. 

He's feeling someone else's feelings.

Amazing.

_...no._

Distracting. Amazing but distracting. What does he feel like to _him_? T he phone line is less of a phone line and more of a full-on...he stumbles again. 

_** Experience. ** _

_Yeah, experience._  

**_I can feel you and you can feel me - but I think that's because you're on a lot of meds and they just had me do a bunch of blood work and SHIELD tests. So, you know, both our minds' natural propensity to guard itself is kind of down. You know what? No matter how we slice it this is probably weird...for you, I mean. Actually it’s really fucking weird for me too but_ ** **_my threshold for ‘weird’ has_ drastically _increased in the last week so I’m good._** He wants to laugh too, a little. And maybe the other person feels that, because there’s slightly more relief coloring their...call or connection, or whatever this is. **_You’re Christopher Argent, obviously, and I’m Stiles. Stiles Stilinski from Beacon Hills, California and - you have probably guessed this part - I’m one of your Soulmates._** ** _You’re in Seattle General. Allison’s probably in the waiting room, where she’s set up camp. I think my Dad got her to leave once in the last four days and the Hales twice but it’s no go. It was…pretty touch-and-go until two days ago. I’m-_**

Suddenly, he gets an image just…dropped into his head. 

He’s never had a Guide in his head because, up until now, he’s actually done a great job of avoiding head trauma so he has nothing to compare it to. But it’s like he’s caught a football - but only after a fumble - his mind automatically open to receive without thought. When he has more words (when he can think without it being work), he'll wonder at why it isn't seamless but not unfamiliar. Now his own brain just makes way, because the image is-

_jesus, what is this, what is he looking at _

-tubes, his head’s shaved, bruises mottling everywhere, swallowed by white sheets. He looks like he’s on the verge of death, really, and from this angle he can see bandages peeking out of the neckline of his hospital gown. And someone - _Stiles,_ his brain very helpfully - is holding his hand, everything else blurred out of focus. The image shakes. Audio slides in, something about a 'Peter'. The image shakes again. The view changes and now the gaze is upwards at a ceiling and he can see a bedrail and-

_You’re…_ This is Stiles Stilinski's eyes. And Stiles is...also hurt. _Why?_

**_Something happened to_ you. **He’d guessed as much. **_Yeah, it was bad enough to bring us running all the way from California. You were attacked, we think, in the middle of the Whole Foods parking lot. Not entirely sure what happened because, go figure, no cameras in that particular place, but you took a couple of hard blows...all over. It's why you're losing words, sometimes. Do you remember any of it?_**

He remembers walking, paper grocery bags in each hand, doing a hop to angle a hand into his pocket so he could get the keys and then-

**_Oh._ **

_You said "one of"?_

__****_Yeah, there are two of us_**. ** _ _

_Are they-_

__****_He's here, in the Clinic too. I can sense that he's asleep._****__ Another flash - just a single close-up of a dark-haired man with blue eyes against a wall. Sharp eyes. ** _His name is Peter and, coincidentally, he's also from Beacon Hills._**

He wants to know more - but there's something. Something in Stiles' voice says 'red sign'. It makes Chris feel something. He's too tired to guess at what.

 ******_Well._****** Stiles goes for light. He misses. ** ** ** _Y_ _ou probably want your kid and your best friend_**** _._ **

_Ania's here?_   He shouldn't be surprised. He was out for awhile, it sounds like. Of course, his best friend is here. She would never leave Allison to face this alone.  _Ania's here._

******** ** _Yeah. You want-_ **

_Can you-_

**_-yeah, of course. I’ll tell a nurse to get them to your room, okay?_ **

Stiles must have staff on call.

Or can communicate with them mind-to-mind too.

Who can say. All he knows is that he isn't alone for long. A small crowd of people enter his room. The Hispanic woman in robes like wheat with her hair pulled back in a tight braid makes a beeline for the head of his bed. He does his best to turn to look at her, while the rest of her people hang back. 

"Good afternoon, Christopher," Yellow Robes says warmly in accented English. She sounds nice. Comforting. "I’m Chief Guide Stephanie Hernandez and you’re at Seattle General. These are my colleagues, Head of Surgery Farah Abdour and Head Physician Linda Smoot," she points at a pale redhead and a smartly dressed blonde behind her, who step up to her side. "You’ve been through quite an ordeal. You were brought in six days ago. Can you remember what happened?"

He shakes his head - yes, he remembers. But he’s just had an entire conversation with Stiles Stilinski. He wants someone else to speak for awhile. But then what she says actually breaks through and-

“Six?” His voice sounds like death and talking immediately makes him cough. 

“Six days," she repeats gently. She and her people step closer to the bed but he's still too shocked to keep his eyes on them. Six days. Almost a week. "With head trauma and some complications, it’s taken quite a bit of time to recover. You were hit pretty hard in multiple places around your neck, shoulders, and head. Can my team and I check your response?"

He nods. 

Then there's just the hum of monitors. Everyone breathing as the Head physician personally takes his vitals. The other staff do other things. Mess with his IV fluids. Measure his response to light. Something about touch sensitivity. It mostly keeps him from staring at the wall behind them and thinking  _six._ He's been...gone for six days. 

"We have you on several different medications," says the woman named Linda Smoot. Physician. "All pretty standard after traumatic brain injury. You might find that you have some difficulty with speech - that talking might sometimes be tough because words are hard to think of. We're still trying to understand how lasting that damage may be, how long it will take you to acquire the through your mating bond, and whether it will fully erase any damage."

Oh.

Damage.

Brain damage.

This. This is why he’s losing time. Words. _Head trauma._

"I know this is a lot to take in," the physician says kindly, "and this is the first time you've been fully alert. We don't want to overwhelm you, Chris, so we can stop-"

"No." He's still raspy. He's lost enough time. He clears his throat. "No. Should know."

_ Head trauma. _

He...alright. No need to panic, just yet. His breath comes in faster and faster and he can't, he really can't think about a life with a language impairment, and he-

-there's a pulse of feeling in his head. And it's not him since he's  _not calm_ which means it's Stiles. One of them, trying to help him keep it together. He loses track of the rest of the world while the steady feeling of 'it's okay, you're okay, it'll be okay' fills him up. It pushes the panic aside. And then it doubles in size and he knows that his second soulmate must be awake and has joined the mix.  They don't say anything. They just give him enough calm for him to collect himself.

The world comes back into focus, his crowd of doctors looks professionally concerned.

Alright. He can do this.

"How," he finally asks, "how bad?"

“When you were first brought in, you weren’t conscious. You'd been beaten and the injuries you suffered hurt the parts of your brain responsible for memory and involuntary function. It means that none of our Guide could link to you successfully.  We still operated in the first twelve hours - there was a lot of internal bleeding we needed to take care of, in your body and your brain. I’ll be frank -we nearly lost you a few times.”

 _Jesus Christ._

"I'm in a triad." 

No one in the room looks surprised that he knows. Must mean that everyone knows.

"Yes," the Head Guide says. "I imagine you can feel the bonds."

He nods.  He has to get his courage up to ask what he really wants to know.

"How-" he finally croaks, "how did they...how did you find me?"

"A Telling."

"What?" he asks, dumb.  Did he...hear her correctly? "Like a Banshee?" 

"I’m not sure how aware you are of the mechanics of a Telling- how connected someone needs to be to the person the foretelling is about, how close they need to be physically to the scene of the event, and why that matters - but you're lucky. All of you.  The Banshee in question is good friends with one of your soulmates, and saw your attack back in California.Tellings don’t tell a Banshee or a Guide where the vision happens, though if you’re familiar enough with a place to translate the visual cues, you can guess. One of your soulmates actually was already in the area, and it led your other soulmat. ”

He’s…so lost. Officially overwhelmed.Tellings mean death. As far as he knows, as far as  _anyone_ knows. There's something that they're not saying. Before he can ask what, there's a knock at the entrance of his room and-

-his kid's face is pale, circles under her eyes. She's been out there, he's sure, just worrying. Her godmother, standing right behind her at least drags on a smile. Practically his entire world, standing in the doorway. He's got no eyes for anything else.

"Allibear." Her old nickname is a breath, but his baby girl flies across the room quicker than he can blink. By the time she half falls into the bed, the medical staff is all gone. I t's just him and her and Ania, standing by the door. He's tired, so tired, but he manages to get one hand high enough to touch her hair. 

Everything still hurts.

But he's alive.

And that's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's take one and take two on the whole 'everyone meets everyone for the first time' meeting, featuring the somewhat unrealistic fall-out from traumatic brain injuries. writer's block...be gone!
> 
> on a personal note - i just saw black panther and it was good! you should too.


	12. grey

If everything could just calm down for a second so he could  _breathe_ , Stiles Stilinski would be really extravagantly _amazingly_ grateful.

In an ideal world, he would have woken up out of that oddly realistic near-drowning experience in his soulmate's head to a bright room. He’d have come to gently, staring at some nondescript clinic ceiling. Maybe with his Dad looking anxious but not too anxious. A Guide on hand, the doctor trio, a Hale alpha perhaps. Just a regular shmegular 'hey-I'm-hospitalized-but-my-soulmates-are-alive-and-on-the-mend' type rise to consciousness, you know? It could have been perfect.

Yeah, he's just _not_ that lucky.  

He’s kicked into consciousness by a wave of  _absolute fear_. It snaps him from asleep in a murky darkness he doesn't recognize into a room that he can barely pull it together enough to look at - and the walls are closing around him and he can't  _see_ and he doesn't know how that's possible when his eyes are open. There's about 10% of his brain that knows this isn't even his fear. It's Argent’s.

It doesn't make a difference though. 

He tumbles into a full-blown panic attack, like he's twelve again and desperately missing his mom while terrified his Dad is going to die too. 

Ice in his veins. Dim vision, a relentless hammering in his ears. 

He can't say for sure how long this goes on. The ice intensifies suddenly, a wave building, his hands are tingling like he's just come in from a snowstorm or something, but it's the opposite - the cold is settling _in_ and the feeling is going _out_ -

      **Stiles-**

-a voice he knows. Stiles can't really understand him. He just knows that's who's hearing.

it's not him. This isn't coming from him-

-but he's choking on snow, the ice is in his  _throat_ now, he's just a ship tossed in a storm. He can't fucking breathe,  _again_ , and that's worse because now he's viscerally re-living that moment in Christopher's head where he'd opened his eyes to water above and below and all around and-

      **Stiles.**

-he comes out of it to Peter Hale crouching over him.

There's a solid couple of seconds where his head is still underwater; he's still trapped on that beach with snowcapped mountains in the distance and the sound of the waves. He can't shake it, not really, and a Hale in johnny gown blues is so fucking weird that it's not weird at all.  _Peter,_ his brain spits out eventually, and he focuses on the guy.

Panic attack. Right.

"With me?" asks Peter.

Stiles is a bobble-head. 

He nods and nods and nods because he can't see shit beyond Peter’s calm face and blue eyes; he can barely feel one of the were's hands pinning both of his to Peter’s chest, the other gripping his neck like the anchor he didn't know he needed. 

"Yeah," he rasps out. H e can hear how  _wet_ his breathing sounds; wet like tears, wet like it hasn't sounded in years. 

Christ.

How powerful is Christopher Argent's fear to leak into another person's consciousness? What is he dreaming about?

He's got an ear out for Peter, who's very busy instructing him to breathe (which he's trying to do) and calm down (also...trying) but he's really more busy taking stock of his body and trying to figure out just what the fuck is happening. Head hurts; God, his chest  aches like he's taken a beaten internally _._  

Okay, is this a thing that happens to soulmates? Is it possible that they've got some additional powers? Is this a side-effect of being in a triad or is this because he'd literally been in the dude's head when everything went sideways? He doesn't have any answers but, by God, he's gonna find 'em. 

After he's donegasping like he's a recovering asthmatic, of course. He's forgotten how sucky coming down from the fight-or-flight thing that always accompanies these.  


Could be minutes, could be hours - e ventually, he succeeds and t he world settles back into order.  His chest heats up, his vision widens back into normal, the spots on his vision lighten up - and his brain keeps powering through processes on a sub-level.

His world expands beyond the soulmate moving off his lap and he finally sees his Dad looking anxious and exhausted at the foot of his bed, next to a whole host of medical professionals. 

"Dad." He sounds fucking terrible, good Lord. "Hi, Dad."

That, at least, pulls a wan smile out of his Pops-

-who, actually, looks way more anxious and exhausted than the last time he'd been in the hospital (which, horrifyingly, was only a couple of days ago). Plus, he's got a death-grip on Stiles' hands - all signs point to a whole lot of "not good".  

Oh...no.

"So, how-" he licks his lips and squeezes his father's hands,"-how long was I out?"

"Over a day," Dad says. 

More than twenty-four hours.

_ Oh no. _

Well, that explains a mobile He takes a breath and his body is incredibly upset. He doesn't think his chest has ever felt this way and that's saying something for a kid almost as accident-prone as they come.  He winces, and his lungs pulse like he's coughed them out forcibly and-

_...he'd been drowning in Christopher Argent..._

-so...huh. This should have been a simple Guided link to Christopher's head, not full on immersion into someone else's consciousness. Which he remembers - like, all of it - and his apparently manifested physically. That isn't actually  _a thing_.

Is it?

God, when is this soulmate deal going to stop throwing them curves?

"Well, what a way to come to" is all he says out loud.

There's a flurry of movement - Healers and Guides and the blue robes whose professions he can't remember right now are all over him, checking tubes and tying knots and weaving charms. There's a fancy bit of wandless magic from Chief Guide Hernandez, who's either scarily good at predicting pain levels or just an angel sent down from heaven for this in particular, that knocks the pounding in his head from an 11 down to an 8.

"What happened, kid?"

"Christopher Argent," he says heavily. "Like emotional transference? I had panic attacks when I was younger. Even though I know I'm not the one having a nightmare, doesn't seem to matter."

"What?!"

"Well," says Hernandez with a look of surprise, "unusual and unexpected." 

Nightmare is a fucking understatement for whatever darkness the guy's fighting in his head. Still, he feels oddly protective about sharing with the room-at-large. His Dad looks as resigned as Stiles _feels_. Yeah, the surprises - they just keep on coming.

"You feel it like it's your own?"

"Yes and no. I know it's not mine but it's overwhelming," he admits, "so even though the panic attack started out "sympathetic", I was...well, I was thinking about my own fears by the end."

He opens his mouth to further elaborate but gets cut off at a sudden pulse of terror that he knows isn't his or Peter's. It's enough to send his heartbeat out of control.

Peter's in his face immediately, two hands cupped around Stiles' face.

     **Stiles.**

His eyes are probably already wide with second-hand fear so his absolute shock at dude's voice in his head? It's so damn out of place that he's kind of just startled outta whatever reaction he was going to have to their third. 

_... what- _

      **My sentiments exactly, at first.**

Whoa. It's like he's not just  _hearing_ words as they're spoken aloud but getting all the connotations and meanings behind them. Which is fucking freaky because Peter's face, mere inches from his, is perfectly at ease. None of the slight amusement or the hint of worry that Stiles can hear in the guy's mental voice.  


Holy. Shit.

_How-_

**I don't know. But I'm confident that you'll be first to figure it out.**

_What the fuck is happening?!  
_

**I honestly don't know, Stiles. I've been able to feel you both, in part, since I woke up.  
**

"Stiles?" His Dad is gripping his wrist, sounding like he's a minute away from packing Stiles up and running for the hills. "Son, what is it?"

_Do they know?_

      **It was pointless to share until one of you was awake.  
**

_Okay, you know what, dude? You don't get to be this fucking calm!_

      **I've had about twenty hours to get used to feeling the two of you in my head, while you've only had around twenty minutes.  
**

There's a long moment where Stiles is just staring and trying to process - his lungs are aching, he's bewildered and just about ready for unconsciousness to return because it's been twenty minutes and a fucking rollercoaster already - before the wolf releases his face again.

"Sorry, Dad." He tears his eyes away from Peter turns towards his Dad. I don't think the nightmare is over."

Chief Guide Hernandez looks troubled.

"Mr. Hale - can you also feel Mr. Argent's emotions or were you reacting to Mr. Stilinski?"

"Not to the same extent as Stiles, it appears. I was reacting to his physiological reactions."

While Peter talks, there's a thick wave of...something nice that blocks out all his other senses. Like afternoon sun on his face. It pushes through the lingering threads of tiredness and anxiety in his head, like a wind. It builds and builds, coming out of nowhere. Coming out of Peter. Rolling through him, rolling through the bond, multiplying as it goes.

He basks in it before he realizes that it's not just barreling down the bond he shares with Peter, but the part of his head reserved for Christopher Argent is quiet and calm. Sleeping, he thinks to himself. Argent isn't scared anymore.  


Jesus.

Peter's been awake a day; he's either going off of instinct or he's been testing their triad connection _successfully._ Stiles is...so...(surprised? awed? shocked? speechless? Hell, all of the above) that he can only blink. 

Takes him a minute to tune back in to the rest of the world.

"-unusual in every sense of the word," Chief Guide Hernandez is saying thoughtfully, her arms crossed over her robes. "Emotional transference is most common in _familial_ relationships - bonds between twins, triplets, quadruplets for example. The Pull that weres feel is probably the most similar event. Even that, isn't strictly emotional transference."

"So," Peter muses, "no precedent." 

"Nothing exact. I imagine that once your full team of specialists has arrived tomorrow, we'll have more of an idea. Or," she says with the first hint of humor, "some theories to test. I wish I had more answers for you. At this point, we'll send a Guide to your third's room to try and alleviate the dreams so that you can _all_ get some rest."

He stays silent for the ten minutes - checking his vitals, a Calming Draught to be taken ten minutes before he falls back to sleep - before the two Guides move on to their third's room. 

In the resounding silence, his Dad gestures between the two of them with raised eyebrows.

"You going to tell me what just happened?"

"What?"

"You had a _sympathetic_ panic attack, Stiles! If he's still in the middle of a nightmare, then doesn't that mean you'll be awake and having an episode as soon as you try to rest?"

"The calming draught-"

"-is standard. Standard meds for standard situations. This-" his Dad waves at the two of them again, "-isn't."

Well...he's not wrong.

" What happened after I linked to Argent?" he says in an effort to change the subject that backfires, if the sudden tension is any indicator. Dad goes a little white around the mouth. Peter starts oozing 'danger' in Stiles' head.

"...Dad?"

"You went into cardiac arrest."  


"I _what_?"

"You stopped breathing, and your heart stopped."

His jaw practically unhinges, he's so shocked.

Oh God, no wonder his Dad looks so-

"Dad, God, I'm so-"

"Don't you dare apologize!" He's swallowed in a fierce hug. "You did what you had to."

And  _that_ , the hug and his Dad's hoarse voice, that's the thing that finally overwhelms Stiles. All the fear and panic and adrenaline - all the feelings he'd boxed up so he could pore over texts and focus on the bond and get to the precinct and the Clinic and Peter and Christopher Argent and put together a puzzle he didn't have all the pieces to - and at the end of it all, his Dad sitting by his bedside after Stiles' heart had stopped. 

They're all they've got, he and his pops.  


"Jesus," he says wetly, "Dad, I-"

"I know, Stiles."

It's a solid five minutes before the two of them feel settled enough to let go of each other. 

"When I was in Argent's head, it was like being in another landscape. You remember those camping trips back when Mom was still alive? Out to Lake Tahoe?" When his Dad nods, he continues. "I couldn't tell if this was how he pictured himself or how I pictured himself but, while I was in there, I didn't question it. Anyway, the landscape changed a couple of times while I was in there. The last time it changed, I ended up underwater."

"Underwater?"

"Yeah. I distinctly remember being unable to breathe."

"Hence," Peter says thoughtfully at his side, "cardiac arrest consistent with drowning."

"Yeah."

"And now," his Dad says with a distinct air of resignation, "you can sense Argent's nightmares."

"Well," he says in his best 'this-isn't-anything-to-worry-about' voice, "in the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that I can also now hear Peter's voice in my head."

The  _look_ on his Dad's face? Comical. Or, at least, it would if the last couple of days hadn't been traumatic for pretty much everyone involved. 

"You  _what_?"

"Surprise, I'm a wizard," he says uncomfortably. "I'm kidding. Actually, I don't know if that's not true since I'm waking up with all sorts of new and interesting abilities."  


"Peter, does that mean you've been able to hear Stiles this whole time?" Pops is glaring daggers, looking pretty dangerous himself for the first time today.  


"Not really." Shockingly, the werewolf looks guilty and affronted. "I could sense Christopher and I got snatches of thought here or there but it wasn't the same with Stiles. This nightmare is the first time I could sense their emotional states so clearly."

That mollifies his father.

"Deaton?" Stiles asks.  


"Andrew and Talia are picking him up from the airport as we speak." Dad scrubs a hand across his face. "You gonna be able to get some rest before they get back?"

Irrationally, his mind turns to his soulmate.

_ Peter- _

_      **Rest. I'll make sure you sleep.  
** _

It's the promise he needs to squeeze his father's hands reassuringly and tell him he'll be fine, to reach for the meds the healers left behind, to sink back into the bed.

He's asleep before he knows it.

-/-

Magic is not something people do, it's something they  _are_. 

Every textbook - hell, every story-book - worth its salt says as much. The construct of geomtric shapes drawn in chalk, candles and wax, herbs - all of that is essentially an aid to something someone is inherently capable of doing. Kind of like a magnifying glass, so to speak, on the sunlight that represents one's power. And magic of all kinds is a bit of a reflection of who someone is, what they're capable of, and what manner of being they happen to be. Magic tied to weres is dynamic and focused, magic tied to shifters is fluid and hard-to-grasp, magic tied to growing things is rooted. He could go on and on and on, and new branches of magic - new ways in which people are able to affect the world around them - don't bloom into existence very often. It's what has the entire Clinic in a fever pitch over their...powers.

_ "Stiles, can you describe what it feels like to levitate the books?"  _

_ "Stiles, can you get this seed to grow into a sapling? Is this faster or slower than normal?" _

_ "Are you drawing on your own power? Has it always felt like this?" _

_ "When you do that, does the bond change in reaction?" _

_ "Can you tell me what Peter Hale is doing right now?" _

_ "How about Christopher Argent's feelings?" _

_ "Using your best guess, can you tell us how far away each of your soulmates is?" _

He's been lifting, tugging, charming, spelling, measuring, and transfiguring things all week and he's  _tired_ of it.

Yes, sure, it's exciting that his baseline is now higher than it was when he was a sole practitioner with no soulmates and he gets that they are basically the weirdest thing to happen to magic in a century. But his magic stores are not _that_ much bigger, and he's getting really tired of feeling a bit like a lab rat under the heavy observation of so many damn robes.What he is? Exhausted. 

His specialists, the Clinic's own professionals - everyone's excitable. Deaton's the only break he gets from the relentless questions and even he has to probe to get an idea of what this mating bond might evolve into.

Sleep isn't even escape. Whatever Christopher is dreaming about is terrible - half the time he closes his eyes, he's met with sinister darkness. Shadows at corners. Mist. The imagery would be hilarious because of how  _literal_ it is if it weren't accompanied by all the feelings of fear and discomfort and confusion. 

What makes it scarier is that he knows now that Christopher isn't actually out of the woods until he wakes up. He and Peter are up and conscious and moving around but the induced coma Christopher is in ended yesterday. Their third should be awake but instead he's still stuck in the dark. When Stiles tries to send thoughts like he and Peter do now, he feels like he's talking to a void. Nothing out there to receive. 

The prognosis of 'brain damage' becomes more and more terrifyingly real with each passing hour.

He knows it's stupid, he  _knows_ that he should just confide in a Guide or ask for something to get rid of the dreams or talk to a Guide about how to shield his mind but he can't shake the feeling that if he - if _they_  - leave Christopher alone in the dark, he'll never wake up.

He knows it down to his bones.

So he's exhausting his magic, under-performing tests that seem more pointless with each passing day, can't sleep, _and_ no one's any closer to finding answers. 

Thank God for the Hales. It's fascinating, really, to see how each Hale uses charm so differently. Talia speaks with all the polish of a politician, every inch the public official - whenever she interrupts his sessions, it's with the firm expectation that the medical staff will up and leave because she said so. Peter's charm is silk with hidden edges - like he can't help but leak danger, even when Stiles is pretty sure he's not actually trying to be lethal.

This time it's Andrew's congenial 'aw shucks' attitude to the rescue. Stiles can't help the big sigh he lets out as soon as the staff goes. 

"How do you always know?"

"Peter's a good tuning fork."

Stiles coughs out a shallow laugh.

"I did actually come for a reason - I'm heading out to sneak you in lunch. What do you want?"

"Fries." He's not ashamed of whimpering. Who knew Seattle had decent fries, what the fuck? "I'd kill for a vanilla milkshake - but, if they say no, just like...three orders of large fries."

"Roger that." Andrew laughs, comes all the way into the room, leans against the bed. "Allison been by yet?"

"Nah. She bringing me something?"

"Someone - her godmother, Ania Etienne, got in last night."

"That's good." He'd met two reticent Argent cousins, gotten the feeling that they were there to keep an eye on the situation. "More family's good."  


"You need anything while we're all out, you-"

"Text you, yes." 

It takes  _so_ much willpower not to call him  _father_ but, with great restraint, he manages it. Drew Hale is just as much of a Dad as his own, his Left Hand is down and out in a hospital with two surprise *jazz fingers* wounded new pack members so the man's pack instincts are probably shouting  _protect_ at the loudest volumes. 

"I'll be fine." He makes shooing motions - which is probably definitely rude, but he's injured he's  _allowed_ \- until Drew starts to move. "Thank you for the fries!"

He takes a deep breath-

-and immediately regrets it as his lungs just start yelling angrily. No sudden movement, right. 

      **Stiles?**

Is it weird that he's almost not fazed by the mind-to-mind thing? He feels like it should be. Other people would be. Well, you know, he's very carefully not thinking about being able to feel Christopher's terror and get sucked into the guy's nightmare or two - but, clinically speaking, it's fascinating. Shit, there's just _no way_ you can mistake someone's meaning when you're getting more than words. Peter is actually quite hard to decipher - he's guessing the guy's naturally reticent when left to his own devices - but it's like talking beyond talking. Is this what weres do when they're having conversations? Just...parsing all the additional data they're getting from scent? 

All Peter's said is his name and he knows a) dude is checking in on him in response to whatever Stiles is throwing out emotionally right now and he seems to be bracing himself for...something. And it's not like drawing conclusions - no, he knows because Peter's...transmitting all of that data and his brain's just picking it up. That _should_ weird him out. Forget that mind-to-mind speech usually takes at least one inherent telepathic individual _pathing_ to someone who might not be naturally telepathic but has a compatible or receptive mind. Actually, he'd ignored that whole branch of science when he realized that _no_ , he'd never actually be able to talk to anyone using his brain after scoring a pretty abysmal 3.5 on the scale.

Maybe being a soulmate actually negates the whole-

      **Stiles.**

Now Peter's amused. And slightly impatient.

_Aren't you already on your way over here? You can snark in person._

They haven't actually properly talked since he woke up with all the air in his body doing its level best to leave him. And between the doctors and the sleeping and the mining for any detail about what the hell happened while he'd been knocked out...Peter checks in but it's mostly in-person and consists of scent marking which whammies him back into sleep within minutes. He wishes it were easy, that the bond would just reveal everything about the werewolf, but it doesn't so it isn't. Peter's good for panic attacks though, that much he knows.

Everything else is as opaque as the were is most of the time.

      **Now, what on earth could the mental equivalent of a morose sigh be about?**

_Pick. We've got lots to choose from._

      **Touché.**

_Are you? Coming over here, that is?_

      **Patience, young grasshopper** **.**

He badly wants to point out that Peter's dating himself w/the Kung Fu ref but he doesn't wanna make it weird _and_ he's not actually this comfortable with the guy (but it's also kind of hard to keep any barriers in place when someone's seen you fall to pieces like that) so, again, he restrains himself from a good joke. Instead, he settles into the bed with a twinge of pain from his lungs and stares expectantly at the door.

The other superpower he's magically gained is sensing where his soulmates are. It'll be handy in the distant All-Three-of-Us-Are-Healthy-Mobile-And-Able-to-Verbally-Communicate future but, for now, it's a bit of a comfort to have a general sense that they're somewhere in the building. Well, when it works since it goes in and out - but he can tell it's growing.

Peter walks into the room looking better than he had when Stiles had first clapped eyes on him two days ago. Color's back in his cheeks, he's holding himself straight (although Stiles doesn't actually put it past the guy to pretend, it seems the kind of thing Left Hands get taught at birth) and lounging in a way that screams unassuming and i'll-fuck-shit-up at the same time. 

"How do you master that look?" He's been vaguely wondering whether Peter came out the womb this cool or if it's something he's aged into, like fine wine.

"What look?" Peter asks curiously.

"The-" Stiles makes a gesture that encompasses the guy's entire body.

Peter suddenly breaks into a wicked grin.

"That," Stiles gives him an unimpressed look and shakes his head, "is not what I meant."

"No?"

"No," he says, biting back a grin. It's nice, you know. A little bit of whiplash to go from being pissed at seeing the mildly threatening man Peter had been in his hospital room back in Beacon to whoever Peter is right now. "I'm awake, you're awake, we should talk."

"We haven't been?"

"Not about anything important." Peter's smile dims down to something small and rueful, right before he finally comes all the way in and drops carelessly into the seat next to Stiles bed. When they just look at each other for a minute - and he's not blind, it's a nice view - Stiles figures he's got to jump-start this whole thing.

"Is he why you left?" Stiles asks, curious.

"The Pull is-"

- _a pulse in his chest, right below his breastbone, an insistent directional thump that requires he talk to his Alpha, see his first soulmate before he follows it to his second-_

"-hard to describe."

His lungs pulse with dull pain in response to the phantom pull. Huh. Okay, yeah, if that's what it feels like then no wonder the guy'd hightailed it out of town to find Christopher Argent.

"Did you mean to do that? Give me what it feels like?"

Peter perks up. "What did it feel like?"

"A second heartbeat."

"An accurate, if poetic, description. And, no, I did not. It seems our bond is as much instinctive as it is intentional."

"I can see now," and he can, it had felt like a magnet in his chest "how that would be difficult to deny. You...came to see me?"

"Hospital staff didn't tell you that I came by?"

"Were they supposed to? Because not even Derek and Cora knew where you went."

He's really not trying to sound needy or angry - not now when they've all barely managed to get here in time to make a difference - he's genuinely curious. Puzzling out Peter Hale's motivations is probably gonna be _way_ more essential to making the next few months work than anything else. 

"Ah." It's a surprisingly delicate sound, empathetic even. Stiles is still startled when Peter leans forward, all economy of motion, and palms the back of his neck. It's very deliberately calming. "I apologize. I genuinely thought they would have told you I came by when you were asleep." 

"I don't need to be soothed, you know," he observes. "I'm really not mad now - even if you really could have just texted while on the way."

One minute it's just a hand on his neck (easy to file away and ignore). The next Peter gets up, gets all in Stiles' space, cheek-to-cheek in a move so fluid that it's fucking poetry.

It's hard to ignore all the endorphins his body's putting out in response to a soulmate's hands cupping his face. There's a long moment where his eyelids flutter shut, and the werewolf's stubble is a rasp against his own.

"Again," he's repeating himself but he's really fucking proud of how steady his voice comes out, "I don't need to be soothed."

"Maybe _I_ do, then."

It's...kind of nice, all this touching. He's fairly tactile as an individual and with a bunch of were friends he gets plenty skinship, as it is, but this is different. Peter is different. And everything with him is nowhere nearly as cut-and-dry as it is with his friends, which only makes this even more different. It's still nice though, to be on the receiving end of some of the softness he'd low-key thought would come with the waking up to a burn mark on his shoulder, to totally get a slight hum of content from the part of his head that now belongs to this soulmate. Ten seconds - minutes, hours, who knows - later, they slowly part. Jesus, Hales and their  _genes_. Peter's eyes catch and keep the light, and his face is soft with something that Stiles can't pin down.

Still, because he can't quite squash the instinct to ruin the moment, Stiles quirks a small grin.

"Soothed?"

Peter breaks into a surprised bark of laughter - and there's one last errant brush of thumbs against the sides of his neck, probably in retaliation - before he settles back into the hospital seat. "Soothed."

"Good. Because I know you also wanted to talk about something, don't pretend like you didn't."

Peter takes his time settling back into his chair. pulls out his phone. There are a few moments of silence where Stiles just watches the guy fiddle around on his phone, and he's prepared to be exasperated. What's he's not prepared for is Peter handing him the phone, the screen lit up with Google search results for-

-a serial killer named Gerard Argent.

Holy...shit.

Late 1990s, he reads, a string of tortured-to-death witches and weres scattered across Bible Belt America. He scrolls to what looks like an article. Two coven leaders - Abiline, Texas and Springfield, Missouri - both men, both not Caucasian. A brother and sister from a werefox pack in Mississippi, a trio of Latino druids from the University of Alabama, a Jewish Spark strangled in the forest of Greenbrier in West Virginia. By the time he gets to the end of the article to read the grand finale of a family of six werewolves poisoned with mountain ash before being mutilated and burned, Stiles is so fucking shocked that he can only sit there a minute and stare blankly at the phone in his hand.

Stiles' head feels like it's going to explode and float away.

_What...is this?_

When he looks up, Peter Hale is the epitome of still and studied calm. 

"His father?"

Peter nods. 

"Right. I didn't...learn about this in school." His eyes keep getting drawn back to the word 'mutilated', he can't help it. Christopher Argent is...the son of  _this_. "Christ. Everyone knows?"

"Allison Argent took Tali aside the night I was brought here. You know, we know, but staff haven't made that connection."

"And...you've known since you woke up, haven't you? That's not a reprimand, by the way, as if I could reprimand you - you didn't hide anything from me, Jesus. I mean..." Stiles licks his lips hesitantly, turns the phone over and drops it in his lap. "Are you...alright?"

Peter still looks absolutely unbothered.When it's clear that he's not going to use his words to answer, Stiles peeks at the bond to see that it's gone opaque. Peter's not an unfeeling asshole. He just isn't forthcoming, and that's okay.

"...okay, dumb question. What do you want to do?"

"What is there to do?"

What, indeed.

Christopher Argent is  _probably_ not like his father. I mean, Allison seems to be an amazing person and shitty people don't usually raise amazing people. And his best friend is a witch, so that's got to count for something, right? Right? But - and he's speaking from the tiny part of him detached from the continuous  _bullshit_ this mating seems to be putting everyone through - the dead are a mix of racial, religious, sexual, and magic identities. The implications of the Left Hand of the most powerful pack in Northern California being tied to a soulmate only one degree removed from magic serial murdering?

Very not good.

 _So_ not good. 

"Nothing," he says slowly, "because you're right. Maybe this is a moot point because he won't even want us. I mean, he's had the bonds for this long - not that I'm blaming him, no one even knows how this shit exactly works - and he's comfortable, he's got a life, a kid, maybe he'll flat-out reject the bond, right? Maybe he'll-"

"-have a long road to recovery ahead of him," Peter finishes without inflection.

"Right...right." He's not freaking out, seriously. He's just thinking of all the ways this won't pan out, aside from the legacy of death thing they've suddenly discovered he's got going. "My point is - and, no, really, I had a point - we don't even know if he'll-"

_-make it through this._

They don't know if Christopher Argent will make it through this.

They don't know if this will end up being a party of two instead of three.

They don't know  _anything_ so what's the fucking point of worrying about they will or will not reject a soulmate who's prognosis is murky at best or chronic pain-filled at worst? 

He shoves a hand through his hair tiredly.

"Anyway. Let's just take it one day at a time." When Peter gives him a look, he smiles wryly. "Yeah, yeah, I managed to talk myself into answering my own question. Don't give me that look, how do  _you_ feel?"

An easy shrug. "There's nothing to be done until the two of you are healed. After that? We'll see."

 -/-

He should answer his texts.

He loves a good game of avoidance but his friends have been clamoring for answers, Dad's been doing his kind-but-firm stonewalling cop routine, group chat is at least 50+ messages strong (which, hey, he's totally not going to bother reading),  and he's probably got a good hour before his body forces him back to sleep.  


 

 

 

> **The Best <Tuesday, 12:25pm>**  
>  …Bueller?
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 12:25pm>  
>  ** Stiles.
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 12:25pm>  
>  ** …Bueller?
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 12:28pm>  
>  ** i just talked 2 ur dad, i know ur up and have ur phone AND there’s hospital wifi, u asshole
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 12:39pm>  
>  ** ive been gone for a wk and u’ve all gotten DECIDEDLY less funny AND more emotional. also can’t catch up, way too many txts
> 
> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 12:42pm>  
>  ** srsly we’ve been waiting patiently but wtf, like wtf is going on. radio silence for three days, all we kno is u found them, there were close calls, and u’r alive???
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 12:43pm>  
>  ** Peter’s talked to Cora and Derek on the phone and he sounded like shit - we’ve been camped at the hale house.
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 12:43pm>  
>  ** are you ok
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 12:45pm>  
>  ** today? sure
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 12:46pm>  
>  ** See, that’s not the kind of response designed to make us feel better.
> 
> **Jackson Whittemore <Thursday, 12:46pm>**  
>  stiles fucking stilinski   
>  srsly   
>  cut the mysterious shit   
>  what is going on?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 12:45pm>**  
>  kidding, kidding, YEESH  
>  guys im fine  
>  dead serious about how not funny y’all are tho

He’s trying to figure out how much deflecting he can do without pissing everyone off - kinda coming up short on answer though. Not because he’s actively trying to keep anything from them, more like he’s got no idea how to tell them without scaring everyone.

Panic attack on regaining consciousness? 0/10, would not recommend.

Even that would have sucked balls but been manageable. But he’d then found out - and this is all in no particular order - that he’d joined the other two in the whole near death experience thing, found out that Christopher Argent is actually the son of a serial murderer, and heard the news that the dude had “extensive” brain damage that no one’s sure will be healed with whatever accelerated healing might come from the triad bond.

Throw in the fact that he and Peter have a front row seat to the confusion and pain and numb fear the dude is feeling constantly?

Yeah,  _no way_  is he telling. No matter how much guilt tripping is about to happen. And, even if he  _did_  want to say something, it was too much to say over text.

 

 

 

 

> **The  Best <Thursday, 12:47pm>  
>  **not tryna pressure u into telling us exactly what happened, bro
> 
> **Puppy <Thursday, 12:49pm>  
>  ** hale pack’s at least gotten to TALK to peter on the phone but no one’s heard from you so, yah, we’re gonna be annoying until you txt us back
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 12:49pm>  
>  ** we just care about YOU we just want to know YOU are okay :(
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 12:50pm>  
>  ** u = silent = not ok
> 
> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 12:50pm>  
>  ** u kno how NOT comforting ‘alive’ is when no one will tell u HOW alive

Okay, so there a  _lot_ of guilt tripping. He still can’t go with ‘sorry, the third dude nearly died, then Peter nearly died, then apparently I came pretty close’. Especially with a Banshee in the group  _and_ after Erica-

-wait. 

His logic’s shaky here.

Having a Banshee and Erica in the group is exactly why he really needs to tell them and get it over with.

 

 

 

> **Me <Thursday, 12:53pm>**  
>  okay wow, i know.  
>  everything’s been so crazy and it’s a lot to type.  
>  TL;DR - we found the third guy, we all nearly died, we’re all recovering in the hospital  
>  there’ve been some complications so it’ll be awhile
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 12:53pm>  
>  ** …
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 12:53pm>  
>  ** Stiles.
> 
> **Puppy <Thursday, 12:53pm>  
>  ** what?
> 
> **Jackson Whittemore <Thursday, 12:54pm>  
>  ** complications
> 
> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 12:54pm>  
>  ** what
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 12:54pm>**  
>  how…bad is it?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 12:58pm>**  
>  nobody seems to know how exactly?  
>  idk   
>  just that since the 3rd dude was attacked, the bond fucked with everyone’s health
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 12:59pm>**  
>  anyway. i had to try and get into 3rd’s head and that got dangerous…made it out alive tho.  
>  just a lil worse for wear.  
>  still pretty tired.

The group chat goes suspiciously silent so he shoots off an individual text to Lydia -  _“it’s not ur fault, red. couldn’t have found him without your vision” -_ because she’ll blame herself a little less, maybe, if he keeps saying so. He shifts in the bed, rolls over on his side even though his arm is going to get tired in 0.5 seconds. Then he starts typing because it's going to take forever to get all the pertinent deets out anyway and he's already feeling exhausted.

 

 

 

> **Jackson Whittemore <Thursday, 1:04pm>  
>  ** Jesus, Stiles
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:04pm>**  
>  complications from the attack? or from you going into one of their heads?   
>  and complications for who?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:07pm>  
>  ** both? all? uh it’s kinda hard to explain????
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:07pm>**  
>  i went into third’s head and got stuck, kind of, but it was like…  
>  what was happening to me while i was in there was also happening to me out here. and peter apparently also ended up in his head too?   
>  or he had a dream  
>  not actually sure which of the two is true
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 1:10pm>  
>  ** That…shouldn’t be possible, w/o a well-laid spell.
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 1:10pm>  
>  ** okay but WHAT happened to you in his head?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:10pm>  
>  ** uh i kind of drowned

His fingers move as fast as his brain, even when he’s exhausted and on pain meds apparently, and he knows immediately that he’s fucked up by delivering the news like that. Confirmed by how quiet the chat goes again. Okay, so, he should probably have led in with something gentler? Softer? Too late, it’s out and now he’s going to have to try and backtrack.

 

 

 

> **Me <Thursday, 1:11pm>  
>  ** i meant to be a LOT less blasé with that
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:12pm>  
>  ** guys?????
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:13pm>  
>  ** plz dont be mad 

They're...probably mad.

 

 

 

> **Me <Thursday, 1:14pm>**  
>  this is why i didn’t text back  
>  how was i supposed to tell u that
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:14pm>**  
>  and it’s fine, i’m fine
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:15pm>**  
>  srsly
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 1:15pm>  
>  ** you what?
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 1:15pm>  
>  ** You…drowned.
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 1:15pm>**  
>  oh my god
> 
> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 1:15pm>**  
>  yeah, it's fine and ur fine  
>  so fine ur still checked into the hospital  
>  that’s how fucking fine u are

Fuck. They're  _definitely_  mad.

 

 

 

> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 1:15pm>**  
>  oh my GOD
> 
> **Puppy ** **< Thursday, 1:16pm>**  
>  …no srsly are you kidding or??
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:16pm>**  
>  you drowned in his head and your body acted as if you drowned in real life???  
>  it's not a hex? this is just from being in his head? how is that possible?  
> 
> **Jackson Whittemore <Thursday, 1:16pm>**  
>  how is ANY of this possible  
>  the telling and the triad and even somehow finding the guy in seattle  
>  none of this has been possible  
>  from the beginning 
> 
> **The Best <Thursday, 1:16pm>**  
>  are. you. okay.
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 1:16pm>**  
>  Wait. You said “all”. What happened to the other two?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:17pm>**  
>  well, peter’ll probably be fine but his healing is slowed to a little faster than the normal non-were rate
> 
> **Red <Wednesday, 1:17pm>**  
>  How…is that possible?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:17pm>**  
>  yea. weird, huh.  
>  shouldn’t be that slow but reigning hypothesis is that it’s cuz me and 3rd need to heal so he's like...lending us his superpowers until ours grow 
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 1:17pm>**  
>  i’m scared to ask  
>  bc u’ve been dancing around it the whole time  
>  is your third ok 
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:18pm> **  
>  well…i mean
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:19pm>**  
>  it was pretty significant head trauma?
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:20pm>**  
>  they’re saying they can’t tell whether there’ll be permanent brain damage 

Stiles had stopped being an optimist at age ten, but he's still got a functioning scrap of hope. He's gotta believe that all of this wasn't  for nothing. Christopher Argent is still here because he and Peter can still feel him. So they all have to suck it up. He and Peter have to throw everything they have at the bond and the specialists have got to do everything in their power to puzzle through this. And Christopher has to fully wake up.

 

 

 

> **Puppy ** ** <Thursday, 1:21pm>**  
>  holy shit, stiles
> 
> **Jackson Whittemore <Thursday, 1:21pm>**  
>  jesus fucking christ
> 
> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 1:21pm>**  
>  oh my god
> 
> **Red <Thursday, 1:21pm>**  
>  Oh Stiles
> 
> **The ** **Best <Thursday, 1:22pm>**  
>  i’m so sorry, bro
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:24pm>**  
>  okay
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:25pm>**  
>  unless you feel like sharing, that’s enough for today.
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:25pm>**  
>  bc this would be a lot for anyone, i'm going to ask you one more question  
>  that you don't have to answer  
>  emotionally, are you okay

Leave it to Boyd to stop him in his tracks. Is he okay? He hasn't even told them about the murdery part of this debacle. Jesus. He starts to type and then stops. Then starts and stops and starts and stops and-

 

 

 

> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:25pm>**  
>  it’s okay, stiles  
>  just…you don’t have to be okay
> 
> **The  Best <Thursday, 1:25pm>**  
>  bro, you reaaaaally don't  
>    
>  **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 1:27pm>**  
>  ur not fine  
>  u dnt need to be fine  
>  & u dnt need to pretend
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 1:29pm>**  
>  it’s ok if you’re not ok  
>  anyone would not be okay

Is he okay? He’s...like, he's not pretending he is. He's not hopeless - he’s been getting by on sarcasm and the naps he can grab between the sensory overload - but the reality is this: two days ago, Stiles had woken up to a soulmate’s fear, and he’s had ample opportunity to develop his own in the meantime so now all that fear has sunk into his bones. Even with Peter being a constant unrelenting buzz by his side, Stiles has been struggling to find a new normal since.

He's not sure there's a way to say that over text that won't sound sad, though-

 

 

 

> **Lethally Blonde <Thursday, 1:30pm>**  
>  ur allowed to be sad  
>  this is awful and ur allowed to be sad  
>  or mad  
>  or both  
>  or neither

-mind readers. He's best friends with mind readers, obviously.

 

 

 

> **Puppy <Thursday, 1:30pm>  
>  **what erica said
> 
> **The ** **Best <Thursday, 1:31pm>**  
>  you know we've got you, right? 
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:33pm>**  
>  yea
> 
> **Red <Thursday, 1:34pm>**  
>  You don't need to talk if you don't want to.  
>  But you absolutely should feel like you can call us.  
>  Or text us. Whenever.
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:33pm>**  
>  yea, i know. don't know how i feel.  
>  everything. all the things.  
>  idk
> 
> **Boyd <Thursday, 1:25pm>**  
>  okay 
> 
> **The Best <Thursday, 1:31pm>**  
>  that's okay, dude  
>  u dnt have to kno
> 
> **Disney Princess <Thursday, 1:34pm>**  
>  we love you
> 
> **Me <Thursday, 1:05pm>**  
>  i know.  
>  best friends a guy could have  
>  i'm gonna go pass out again now

_ We're alive. _ It's a mantra in his head, in his hands, in his souls - plural, because he def feels a little possessive about the other two after all the life-on-the-line heroics. They're alive.

And where there’s life, there’s a fucking way. 

They’ll just have to figure out the whole living thing as they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took me forever to write, apologies
> 
> two things -  
> 1) to be clear, peter wakes first. then stiles, two days later. then christopher. i'm simply hopping back and forth in this timeline to give you all their PoVs.
> 
> 2) in case you haven't figured out who's who -  
> Kira - Disney Princess  
> Lydia - Red  
> Scott - The Best  
> Erica - Lethally Blond  
> Isaac - Puppy
> 
> derek and cora are good friends but not part of the core group bc they're in different grades - they've got their own squads they each run with. danny remains jackson's best friend but also has his own group of friends.

**Author's Note:**

> It's NaNoWriMo and this plot has been banging around in my head. 
> 
> I do not know what it’s like to be in a committed relationship with all of those people at once - open to critique and feedback so please drop a comment!


End file.
